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littp://www.arcliive.org/details/blackbookbeingfuOObroniala 


THE  BLACK  BOOK 


"We  will  give  you  one  minute  to  finish  it,  Mr.  Norroy,"  said 
the  man,  eyes  on  his  watch. 


THE  BLACK 
BOOK 


Being  the  full  Account  of  how  The  Book  of  the 

Betrayers  came  into  the  hands  of  Yorke  Norroy, 

Secret  Agent  of  the  Department  of  State 


Compiled  from  The  Narrative  of  Miss  Clovis  Clarke 
and  other  authentic  sources,  in  the  archives  of 
the    Bureau     of    Counter-Espionage    and 
Secret  Intelligence. 

By  GEORGE  BRONSON-lHOWARD 


FRONTISPIECE    BY 

PAUL  STAHR 


A.  L.  BURT  COMPANY 
Publishers  New  York 

Published  by  arrangement  with  W.  J.  Watt  &  Company 


COPYKIGHT,    igjo,    BY 

W.  J.  WATT  &  COMPANY 


CONTENTS 


^ooli  ®ne 


Wiit  Pook  of  tfie  Jl^ttta^txsi 

CHAPTER  PACB 

I.  In  which  Our  Hero  Escapes  on  Horseback 3 

II.  In  which  Yorke  Norroy  Suspects  that  Charles 
Petersham  has  Shared  the  Usual  Fate  of 
Heroes  and  Been  Falsely  Accused 14 

III.  Tells  How  Yorke  Norroy  Fell  into  Enemy-Alien 

Hands  and  How  He  Fell  Out  Again 34 

IV.  In  which  our  Hero  Indulges  in  Escape    Number 

Two  and  Tells  All  about  "The  Black  Book." 43 


jan  Cnemp  to  tte  Emperor 

I.  In   which   Ulric  Ulm   Becomes    Ulrich   von   Uhlu 

AGAIN 59 

II.  Tells  about  the  Catacombs  of  Manhattan  Isle....     73 

HI.  How  Ulric  Ulm  Became  a  Decoy  to  Attract  an 

Attractive  "Vampire" 83 

IV.  In   which   Yorke    Norroy,  as   Ulric   Ulm,   Enters 

the  House  of  the  Betrayers 96 

V.  Tells  about  the  Battle  of  Van  Corlear  Square.  . .  105 

V 


2136519   ♦ 


vi  CONTENTS 

Q^e  llureau  of  iHtsisimg  ^vtitlti 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  In   which   a    Black    Book    Falls   prom   the    Sky..  121 
(The  Narrative  of  Qovis  Clarke,  I.) 

II.  Tells  How  Her  Enemies  Plotted  Underground.  ...  128 

HI.  In    which    our    Hero    Hears    Her    Voice    on    the 

Wire  and  Rushes  to  Her  Assistance 141 

IV.  In   which   I   Hide   the    Black    Book    and    Pay   a 

Terrible  Price  for  its  Possession 151 

(The  Narrative  of  Clevis  Clarjfe,  II.) 

V.  Tblls     How    Yorke    Norroy    Found    a    Wounded 

Boy  to  Tell  Him  of  a  Kidnapped  Girl 173 


^oofc  Jottr 
His;  Country  or  $ts;  Xtfe 

I.  Tells  about  the  Man  Who  Fled  from  Himself 181 

II.  How  Another  Man  Pursued  Him 188 

III.  What  Was  Happening  Underground  Meanwhile...  195 
(The  Narrative  of  Clevis  Clarke,  III.) 

rv.  In  which  Another  Prisoner  Enters 205 

(Clevis  Clarke  Continues  Her  Narrative.) 

V.  Tells    of    a    Torture    Torquemada    Might     Have 

Envied 213 

VI.  How  Ethan  Van  Corlear  Proved  Worthy  of  His 

Name 221 


CONTENTS  vu 

^  JLtai  from  tfje  Wnsiisitffi  Jioofe 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  Tells  How  Two  Prisoners  Fared 231 

II.  In   which   Norroy  Builds  a  Scaffold  to   Hang    a 

Hun  as  High  as  Haman 245 

III.  Tells    How    the    Last    of    the    Van    Duyckincks 

Differed  from  the  Last  of  the  Van  Corlears — 
to  His  Ancestors'  Everlasting  Shame 259 

IV.  How  Knatchbull  Came  to  Hold  Both  Hands  High.  268 

(The  Narrative  of  Clovis  Clarke,  V.) 

V.  In    which   the   Freiherr   Eitel   von   Knafft   Goes 
TO   Meet   His    God   as    a    Gentleman   of   Suabia 
Should — as  Contradistinguished  from  a  Prussian.  278 
(Clovis  Clarke  Concludes.) 

I  VI.  How  Ensign  Charles  Petersham,  U.  S.  N.,  Came 
TO  Wear  the  Uniform  after  All;  and  the 
Collator  to  Imitate  Miss  Clarke  and  Conclude 
THE  Tale 287 


THE  BLACK  BOOK 


BOOK  ONE 
THE  BOOK  OF  THE  BETRAYERS 


CHAPTER  I 
In  Which  Our  Hero  Escapes  on  Horseback 

TO  a  prax:ticed  eye  the  man  who  approached  the 
gate  of  the  Brooklyn  navy  yard  one  afternoon 
late  in  the  year  19 16,  was  so  consistently  in- 
conspicuous that  he  defeated  his  own  purpose.  That 
is  to  say,  he  became  conspicuous  by  being  too  incon- 
spicuous. The  neutral,  almost  sad-colored  clothes, 
hat,  and  necktie  would  surely  have  aroused  suspicion 
in  the  sort  of  person  for  whom  they  were  donned 
when  taken  in  connection  with  the  keen,  alert-eyed 
face  of  their  wearer. 

The  guard  patrolling  his  little  section  of  sidewalk 
on  either  side  of  the  gate  was  not  such  a  person.  Con- 
sequently he  was  surprised  when  he  saw  the  badge, 
whose  silver  plating  flashed  momentarily  in  the  last 
rays  of  sunlight. 

This  badge  was  shown  in  lieu  of  a  pass.  There  was 
no  war  for  America  as  yet,  but  the  navy  yard  harbored 
secrets  as  well  as  warships — sometimes  the  two  in 
combination.  One  might  not  pass  within  vmless 
vouched  for. 

This  guard,  having  had  a  plethora  of  such  duty, 
had  seen  such  badges  before,  and  was  to  see  one  soon 
again.     For  just  such  another — than  which  there  is 

3 


4  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

none  easier  to  imitate — flashed  in  the  palm  of  a  sec- 
ond stranger. 

This  second  stranger  seemed  to  have  no  objection 
to  being  conspicuous.  Else  why  clatter  up  to  the  gate 
on  horseback?  Why  wear  riding  clothes  of  a  cut  and 
texture  so  unusual  that  one  must  know  them  instantly 
for  continental  clothes? 

The  face  above  them  was  not  necessarily  conti- 
nental. The  elimination  of  mustache  and  en  hrosse 
hair  do  much  to  overcome  anything  extreme  in  appear- 
ances, although  this  man's  face  was  so  very  white 
and  his  hair  so  very  black  that,  unless  he  donned  a 
disguise,  once  seen,  he  was  not  apt  to  be  forgotten. 

He  had  delayed  his  entry  into  the  yard  until  the 
first  stranger  had  had  time  to  enter  the  commandant's 
office  at  the  extreme  end  of  what,  from  the  gate,  seemed 
a  long  alley  of  workshops  and  office  buildings.  There, 
on  a  snow-covered  knoll,  its  windows  overlooking 
river  and  bay,  was  the  office-hour  habitat  of  him  re- 
sponsible to  the  nation  for  that  part  of  the  its  navy 
stationed  there;  many  appurtenances  and  additions 
thereto  in  the  course  of  construction  and  repair  par- 
ticularly. 

So  much  "particularly"  that  the  offices  of  construc- 
tion and  repair  covered  more  ground  than  those  of 
any  other  of  the  departments ;  had  on  its  pay  roll  for 
both  offices  and  workshops  many  more  names.  The 
Chief  Constructor,  in  his  turn  responsible  to  the  com- 
mandant, was  next  in  rank  to  the  officer  in  charge  of 
the  Washington  Bureau  of  the  same  title  and  slated 
to  succeed  him  when  retired. 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  BETRAYERS  g 

It  was  to  this  officer  that  a  messenger  was  hurriedly 
dispatched  a  few  moments  after  the  overinconspicuous 
gentleman  had  entered  the  commandant's  office. 

The  second  gentleman  of  the  badge  had  only  just 
tethered  his  horse  near  that  office  and  was  busy  with 
his  tethering.  Any  one  near  enough  to  notice,  how- 
ever, would  have  seen  that  the  horse  was  sufficiently 
secured  long  since.  Its  owner  kept  an  eye  on  the  com- 
mandant's messenger  until  that  worthy  vanished 
around  the  corner.  Then  the  stranger  proceeded  to 
make  himself  scarce  by  the  simple  process  of  proceed- 
ing toward  that  same  corner  by  a  longer  route. 

He  reached  it  just  in  time  to  see  the  messenger  re- 
turning in  company  with  a  fair-haired,  brown-eyed 
youngster  who  carried  himself  with  that  conscious 
jauntiness  very  young  men  sometimes  assume  when 
wearing  for  the  first  time  a  suit  of  new  and  becoming 
clothes. 

From  his  made-to-order  collar  to  his  made-to-order 
shoes  this  lad  was  the  pink  of  properness.  New- 
comers to  the  yard  almost  always  mistook  him  for 
a  young  officer  in  mufti.  Which  pleased  this  particu- 
lar lad  very  much,  as  he  had  painstakingly  modeled 
himself  after  these  very  young  officers. 

When  Charlie  Petersham  first  had  come  to  the  yard 
as  assistant  draftsman  at  three  dollars  and  twenty- 
eight  cents  per  diem  he  had  been  fresh  from  a  techni- 
cal course,  to  pay  for  which  entailed  all  sorts  of 
denials ;  hence  had  looked  shabby  and  ready-made  and 
generally  second  rate,  or  even  third  or  fourth. 

No,  on  second  thoughts,  hardly  that;  for  his  fresh. 


6  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

clean-skinned,  small-featured  face  would  always  win 
him  more  than  ordinary  attention.  And  his  eyes  were 
so  exceedingly  intent.  He  was  as  yet  too  young  to 
have  developed  much  sense  of  humor.  Nothing  was 
too  small  for  him  to  take  seriously. 

It  was  just  as  well  for  him.  This  thoroughness  of 
his,  in  conjunction  with  his  rather  remarkable  talent 
for  draftsmanship,  made  his  drawings  mute  evidence 
of  a  thorough  grasp  of  details.  His  ability  to  cor- 
relate those  details  from  a  mere  verbal  explanation  on 
the  constructor's  part,  was  invaluable  in  the  office 
of  C  &  R. 

"It's  as  easy  to  tell  young  Petersham  what  to  draw 
as  it  is  to  dictate  a  letter  to  Miss  Stevens,"  the  senior 
assistant  constructor  had  said  to  his  chief  only  a  few 
days  before.  "He'll  be  chief  draftsman  if  old  Benny 
ever  dies  or  decides  to  resign.  Pity  the  boy's  held 
up  that  way.  Can't  you  do  better  for  him  than  five 
four  a  day?" 

For  Charlie  had  had  a  promotion  soon  after  enter- 
ing the  yard. 

"That's  all  the  bureau  permits  me  to  pay  any  one 
except  those  specifically  provided  for  by  Congressional 
appropriation,"  the  chief  constructor  had  replied 

And  if  you  wonder  how  he  had  that  tongue-twisting 
phrase  so  pat,  it  is  only  because  you  do  not  know  how 
many  times  a  year  it  had  to  serve  as  an  excuse. 

"But  don't  bother  about  Charlie,"  the  C.  C.  had  con- 
tinued. "He'll  be  one  of  us  very  shortly.  He's  kept 
up  with  his  studies,  latterly  under  my  instruction.  I 
sent  home  for  my  old  books  and  exam  papers,  and 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  BETRAYERS  7 

there's  an  examination  to  be  held  for  assistant  con- 
structors in  three  months.  He'll  go  through  it  gal- 
loping." 

Which  explains  how  well  the  youth  who  accom- 
panied the  messenger  stood  with  his  superiors.  A 
more  able  and  industrious  employee,  one  at  once  apt 
and  engaging,  was  to  be  found  nowhere  in  the  navy 
department  imtil  that  unlucky  hour  when  the  incon- 
spicuously conspicuous  gentleman  with  the  badge  en- 
tered into  his  affairs. 

It  had  been  dark  all  day — dismal,  too — the  sun  ap- 
pearing only  at  intervals,  and  then  but  briefly,  soon 
smothered  by  snow  clouds  banking  up  to  north  and 
west.  With  its  final  disappearance  for  the  day,  dark- 
ness set  in  sooner  than  usual;  the  snow  clouds  grow- 
ing bigger  and  blacker.  Charles  Petersham  entered 
the  commandant's  office  just  in  time  to  escape 
the  first  few  flakes  that  fell,  the  precursors  of  light, 
scattering  puffs  of  snow  that  the  wind  whirled  out 
and  over  the  river  like  swarms  of  white  bees. 

The  commandant  sat  at  his  deck  facing  the  river, 
first  his  finger  tips,  then  his  palms  meeting,  his  hands 
never  still.  One  that  had  the  privilege  of  knowing 
the  old  fellow  well  would  have  recognized  this  nerv- 
ous trick  of  fingers  and  palms  as  the  greatest  outward 
display  of  emotion  he  ever  allowed  himself  to  show. 
He  had  shown  no  more  when  a  boiler  had  burst  on  his 
little  gunboat,  his  first  command,  away  back  in  Civil 
War  times,  and  that  when  in  close  pursuit,  and,  it 
seemed,  inevitable  capture  of  a  flying  foe. 

Hence,  had  any  one  who  knew  him  well  been  pres- 


8  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

ent,  that  one,  if  kindly,  would  have  breathed  a  prayer 
for  Master  Petersham. 

The  commandant  wasted  no  time  answering  the 
boy's  salute — another  bad  omen — for,  looking  upon 
himself  as  one  of  them  already — ^being  in  no  doubt  as 
to  his  ability  to  pass  the  examination  that  would  make 
him  Ensign  Petersham,  U.  S.  N. — the  boy  had  fallen 
into  the  officers'  custom  of  clapping  a  flattened  hand  at 
right  angles  to  his  cheek  bones  when  addressing  one 
superior  in  rank.  This  habit  had  hitherto  been  en- 
couraged. Consequently,  at  the  omission  of  the  re- 
turn salute,  Petersham's  flush  was  as  rosy  red  as  the 
bud  he  wore  as  a  boutonniere. 

"Sir?'* 

Rear  Admiral  Thomeycroft  arose  in  his  measured 
wrath.  He  took  from  the  hands  of  the  department- 
of-justice  agent  a  piece  of  tracing  paper,  folded  and 
refolded  to  fit  an  envelope  of  ordinary  letter  size. 

"Yours,  I  think?" 

The  boy  unfolded  the  tracing.  Both  men  watched 
him  as  the  light  of  recognition  leaped  into  his  eyes. 
But  before  he  could  stammer  out  what  his  suddenly 
confused  wits  suggested  the  stranger  said  quietly: 

"It  would  be  useless  for  him  to  deny  it.  We  have 
been  watching  the  house  at  192 1^  Sands  Street  for 
several  weeks  and  censoring  the  letters  mailed  from 
there.  All  the  other  mail  is  in  that  sort  of  code  that 
reads  like  ordinary  *news-from-home'  stuff,  and  we 
couldn't  make  head  or  tail  of  it.    But  this " 

His  face  darkened  as  he  turned  to  the  commandant. 

"Unfortunately  some  one  tipped  them  off,  Admiral. 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  BETRAYERS  9 

Perhaps  our  man  who  got  the  letter  that  contained  this 
went  about  his  work  clumsily.  He  said  something 
about  the  new  postman  making  a  row  and  forcing  him 
to  go  through  a  long  red-tape  rigmarole  before  he  got 
it.  At  any  rate,  after  we  got  the  goods  on  the  people 
there  and  went  to  nab  them,  they'd  shot  the  moon.  So 
this  fine  bird  of  yours  is  the  only  one  we  bag  this  trip. 
However " 

The  boy  saw  the  gleam  of  nickel  plate  in  the  man's 
hand  that  came  out  of  his  pocket.  Despite  the  gather- 
ing shadows,  the  green-shaded  desk  lamp  on  the  com- 
mandant's desk  revealed  only  too  well  the  sinister 
import. 

His  breath  was  coming  in  quick,  short  gasps.  Try 
as  he  would,  Charlie  Petersham  could  not  control  him- 
self nor  wink  away  the — to  him — unmanly  moisture 
that  was  making  everything  misty  wherever  his  eyes 
looked.  But  not  so  mist)'  he  did  not  recognize  the  two 
circlets  of  nickel-plated  steel  for  the  badges  of  shame 
they  were. 

"Listen— oh,  please,  sir!  Do  listen!  I — how  could 
you  think " 

"Unfortunately,  Petersham,  it  is  not  a  matter  for 
thought.  The  evidence  is  before  us.  You  have  been 
caught  giving  government  secrets  to  people  long  sus- 
pected of  being  German  spies.  And  suspected  rightly 
— as  this  paper  you  obligingly  furnished  them  shows." 

He  motioned  to  the  man  from  the  department  of 
justice,  who  advanced,  handcuffs  in  hand. 

"Not  that,"  cried  young  Petersham,  a  new  look  in 
his  eyes,  one  of  outraged  dignity,  of  misplaced  con- 


lo  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

fidence,  of  one  who  has  had  sore  hurt  from  a  world 
hitherto  beheved  to  be  bright,  beautiful,  benign.  "Not 
that!  It  would  kill  my  mother.  She's  sick;  she's 
awfully  sick.  Admiral.  Don't  do  it ;  give  me  a  chance 
to  prove '* 

But  the  stranger  stood  now  but  a  scant  few  feet 
from  him,  and  was  inexorably  decreasing  even  that 
distance  every  second. 

Petersham  put  out  both  hands.  "Admiral !"  he  en- 
treated. "Admiral!  Don't!  Oh,  God!  If  it  gets  into 
the  papers  that  I'm  in  jail  and  my  mother  sees  it — she's 

at  the  hospital;  she's  going  under  an  operation 

Admiral,  don't  let  him  put  those  things  on  me  without 
giving  me  a  chance  to  explain " 

But  the  man  waited  for  no  further  permission  from 
the  commandant.  His  breath  was  hot  on  Petersham's 
face;  his  eyes  looked  hard  and  cold,  the  eyes  of  one 
impervious  either  to  a  sick  mother's  or  a  suffering 
son's  anguish. 

"Put  out  your  hands!"  he  ordered  impassively. 

Petersham  took  one  look  at  those  utterly  unemo- 
tional eyes,  gave  one  glance  at  that  grim  mouth,  so 
mercilessly  set — and  something  changed  inside  him. 
So  might  he  have  been  affected  by  an  electric  shock 
or  one  from  icy  water. 

But  the  man  misunderstood  the  menace  of  the  boy's 
eyes,  from  which  all  blitheness  had  fled ;  remained  only 
the  bitterness  of  the  betrayed,  which  changed  quickly 
to  the  blaze  that  betokens  the  fighting  man  when  his 
blood  is  up. 

"Come  on,  now.    Put  *em  out ** 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  BETRAYERS  ii 

"All    right!      I'll — ^put — 'era — out **    answered 

tetersham,  breathing  deeply. 

The  next  moment  the  other  was  on  his  back,  his 
head  striking  a  comer  of  the  desk  as  he  fell.  And,  as 
the  admiral  turned  from  the  man  who  struck  to  the 
man  so  suddenly  stricken.  Petersham  seized  the  French 
windows  overlooking  the  river,  and  with  the  same 
fierce  strength  burst  them  open,  not  waiting  to  un- 
fasten the  lock. 

Wood  and  glass  splintered  all  about  the  admiral  as 
he  turned  again.  But  it  was  only  to  see  a  fool's  leap 
through  the  air.  For  this  was  a  second-story  room, 
and  one  taking  such  a  jump  might  reasonably  be  ex- 
pected to  topple  over  when  he  reached  the  ground,  leg 
broken  or  something  worse. 

Admiral  Thomeycroft  smote  his  desk  bell,  and,  the 
office  messenger  appearing  from  outside,  he  barked 
brief,  hoarse  commands. 

But  there  had  been  another  who  was  beforehand. 
The  second  stranger,  who  had  also  shown  a  depart- 
ment-of-justice  badge,  had  sauntered  slowly  up  the 
side-walk  during  the  short  colloquy  in  the  office,  and 
liad  now  stationed  himself  on  the  river  side  of  the 
commandant's  quarters,  apparently  aimlessly  gazing 
here — ^there — anywhere. 

But  when  the  window  crashed  open  above  him,  and, 
an  instant  after,  the  lad's  leap  had  landed  him  in  the 
snow  bank  beside  the  man  below,  the  other  spoke  to 
him  as  sharply  and  as  tersely  as  had  the  admiral  to  his 
employee. 

"Jump  on  my  horse  there  by  the  hitching  post. 


12  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

Snatch  this  riding  crop  out  of  my  hand  and  threaten 
me.    Then  ride  like  the  devil.    We'll  see  you  through." 

As  escape  was  his  only  object  just  then,  Petersham 
obeyed.  Nor  was  his  gesture  with  the  snatched  rid- 
ing crop  altogether  acting.  At  that  time  nothing  would 
have  suited  his  mood  more  than  to  bring  that  heavy 
weapon — for  apparently  the  stock  was  loaded — in  vio- 
lent contact  with  the  head  of  somebody — anybody. 

He  sprang  across  the  little,  snowy  hillock,  and  slid 
down  to  the  path  before  the  messenger  had  reached 
the  first  floor.  The  horse's  reins  were  in  an  easy- 
running  knot.  He  unfastened  them  with  strong  fin- 
gers that,  though  hitherto  they  had  trembled,  became, 
as  soon  as  they  gripped  anything,  surprisingly  steady. 

The  horse  loose,  he  flung  a  leg  across  its  back  and 
cut  at  its  flank  with  the  crop.  The  effect  of  this  un- 
expected, stinging  blow  was  to  make  the  horse  careen 
and  then  to  fling  itself  into  a  hand  gallop. 

Behind  him  came  the  man  who  had  ridden  him. 

"Stop  him!  Runaway,  runaway!"  he  cried  at  the 
top  of  his  lungs. 

So  that  before  the  true  state  of  affairs  could  reach 
any  one  outside  the  commandant's  office,  employees  of 
the  navy  yard  observed  one  of  their  colleagues  being 
carried  off  at  a  swift  pace  by  a  horse  which,  if  the 
shouts  behind  were  to  be  believed,  had  apparently  lost 
his  head  through  some  scare  or  the  other. 

So,  too,  thought  the  guard  at  the  gate,  who  knew 
young  Petersham  well.  Hence  he  allowed  to  pass  both 
the  rider  of  the  horse  and  the  panting,  pursuing  owner. 
He  even  grinned  a  little  at  the  latter. 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  BETRAYERS  13 

But  neither  he  nor  any  one  else  in  the  navy  yard 
grinned  when  they  saw  a  low,  underslung  racing  car 
pull  out  of  the  first  street  intersecting  that  one  down 
which  Petersham  was  plunging.  For  by  this  time  the 
panting  messenger  and  others  had  apprised  them  of 
the  true  nature  of  the  young  draftsman's  flight,  and 
they  saw  in  the  backing  motor  car  the  interposition  of 
a  just  Providence. 

They  took  up  the  pursuit  again. 

So  adroitly  was  the  car  handled  that  it  blocked  the 
street  completely,  yet  gave  Petersham  no  reason  to 
believe  that  it  was  purposely  blocking  him.  So  he 
drew  rein  within  a  foot  or  so  of  the  car,  and  shouted 
for  them  to  get  out  of  the  way. 

At  the  same  moment  the  former  rider  of  the  horse, 
who  had  not  ceased  running  when  the  others  did,  and 
who  was  extraordinarily  fleet  of  foot,  arrived  and 
leaped  on  the  foot  of  the  running  board,  beckoning 
Petersham  to  follow. 

So  it  was  that,  just  as  the  navy-yard  men  dashed 
up,  panting,  but  prepared  for  battle,  the  car,  with  the 
horse's  two  ex-riders  clinging  to  its  doors,  sped  away 
so  recklessly  that  it  had  reached  Cumberland  Place 
before  the  most  enterprising  of  its  pursuers  had  done 
much  more  than  a  block  on  the  back  of  the  horse. 

By  this  time,  Petersham  and  his  rescuer  had  long 
since  taken  seats  in  the  rear,  and  the  racing  roadster 
presented  no  unusual  appearance  as  it  turned  down 
another  side  street  and  was  lost  to  the  third  horse- 
man's view. 


CHAPTER  II 

In  Which  Yorke  Norroy  Suspects  Petersham 
Has  Been  Falsely  Accused 

THE  St.  Anthony  Club,  so  called,  was  in  reality 
the  headquarters  of  the  secret  agents  of  the  de- 
partment of  state;  the  "corps"  of  which  Yorke 
Norroy,  by  virtue  both  of  length  and  brilliance  of 
service,  was  the  unofficial  "dean."  None  entered  by 
its  brass-knockered,  stout-oaken  doorway,  set  between 
two  gleaming  white  Georgian  pillars,  who  was  not  a 
member  of  this  most  peculiar  branch  of  public  service, 
the  only  one  whose  employees  are  not  recorded  in 
official  blue  books. 

Of  all  those  who  entered  only  Norroy  himself  was 
held  in  higher  esteem  than  Carson  Huntley,  some- 
times known  as  Norroy's  "left  hand."  Whenever  Nor- 
roy had  a  case  "on"  of  more  than  usual  importance, 
Huntley  was  always  the  first  one  summoned,  and  on 
a  certain  evening  a  few  weeks  after  Petersham  rode 
off  into  the  unknown,  in  obedience  to  just  such  a  sum- 
mons, Carson  Huntley  came  to  the  club. 

In  the  reading  room,  by  the  fire,  he  saw  several 
others  of  the  corps,  but  his  interest  in  what  Norroy 
might  have  to  say  sent  him  scurrying  up  the  stairs, 
taking  two  at  time,  until  he  reached  the  "private" 

14 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  BETRAYERS  15 

library,  so  called  to  distinguish  it  from  the  big 
library  below,  which  contained  several  thousand  books. 
This  smaller  one  had  not  that  many  hundred,  but 
most  of  them  were  in  handwriting,  and  any  one  on  its 
shelves  had  cost  perhaps  a  thousand  times  as  much  as 
one  of  those  on  the  shelves  below. 

For  here,  in  securely  locked,  diamond-paned  book- 
cases were  the  reports  of  the  secret  agents,  and  this 
room  was  in  reality  Norroy's  private  office. 

He  sat  now  at  his  desk  in  the  dusk,  looking  down  on 
old  Delaroche  Street,  where  Georgian-style  houses  in 
red  brick  and  with  mansard  roofs  shared  honors  with 
those  of  even  older,  gabled  architecture. 

Tnese  gables,  along  with  the  stacks  and  clusters  of 
chimney  pots,  gave  a  quaint  Old  World  charm  to  the 
Delaroche  Street  sky  line  as  seen  from  Norroy's  win- 
dow— for  the  St.  Anthony  Club  was  housed  in  the 
mansion  that  had  been  the  greatest  of  the  great  in  that 
neighborhood  of  bygone  aristocrats — and  its  top 
windows  overlooked  them  all. 

"Read  those,"  said  Norroy,  handing  a  packet  to 
Carson.    "My  latest  case.    Yours,  too." 

He  lounged  on  toward  the  fire,  leaving  Huntley  to 
turn  on  the  light  at  the  center  table  and  read.  But  for 
all  Norroy's  lounging  manner  there  was  a  certain 
studied  elegance  about  the  man  that  the  uninitiated 
were  apt  to  take  as  indicative  of  his  entire  character. 
No  greater  mistake  could  have  been  made.  Although 
his  greatest  ambitions  seemed  to  be  to  tie  the  perfect 
dress  tie,  design  the  newest  waistcoat — and  wear  it — 
and  open  the  first  german  of  the  season  with  the  pret- 


i6  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

tiest  debutante  of  the  year,  the  real  Yorke  Norroy  was 
one  who  had  caused  certain  alterations  in  the  map  of 
the  world,  and  was  the  most  feared,  perhaps,  of  all 
the  secret  agents  operating  on  it. 

Constant  training  had  kept  his  figure  much  the 
same  as  when  Huntley  first  knew  him ;  the  increase  in 
years  had  but  changed  the  qualifying  adjective  from 
"slim"  to  "lean." 

Observe  him,  then,  on  the  eve  of  what  was  to  be 
his  most  important  mission  in  Bond  Street  clothes  of 
that  peculiar  dark-green  serge  he  favored ;  silken  waist- 
coat and  tie  from  Paris,  one  matching  the  other,  and 
both  of  alternating  stripes  of  silk  and  satin  of  a  deep 
rich  chocolate  color!  a  Charvet  white  silk  shirt  and 
boots  of  a  similar  color  to  his  waistcoat — the  incurable 
dandy,  the  same  ten  years  before,  ten  years  hence. 
Save  for  the  multitude  of  fine  lines  that  crisscrossed 
his  forehead  until,  under  the  light  by  the  table  which 
he  now  approached,  it  showed  like  another  man's  palm. 
If  they  increased'in  the  coming  ten  years  as  they  had 
in  that  decade  just  passed,  Norroy  must  wear  his  hat 
pulled  over  his  brows  if  he  wished  to  give  any  im- 
pression of  youth. 

"It  was  inevitable  that  the  corps  should  come  to 
grips  with  Prussian  espionage  sooner  or  later,"  he 
said,  advancing  on  Carson  as  the  latter  tossed  to  the 
table  the  packet  of  "flimsies" — special-service  reports 
from  various  bureaus,  all  concerning  the  Petersham 
case.  "And  though  this  draftsman  affair  is  a  small 
wormhole,  it  may  lead  us  to  the  center  of  a  very  big 
and  very  rotten  tree.    But,  being  stich  a  small  worm- 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  BETRAYERS  17 

hole,  it  needs  some  conniving  to  make  it  lead  anywhere 
at  all " 

He  glanced  at  Huntley,  who  had  become  a  human  in- 
terrogation point.  Norroy  answered  his  unspoken 
question : 

"I  mean  lots  of  little  wormholes  only  go  a  little  way. 
For  the  boy's  sake,  I  hope  this  may  be  true  of  his 
case.  For  ours — the  country's — it  might  be  as  well — 
nay,  better — if  he  were  a  traitor." 

Norroy  took  Huntley's  silence  as  a  sign  he  must  ex- 
plain further. 

"Well,  then,"  he  decided  slowly,  judicially;  "I  can't 
believe  in  Petersham's  guilt.  I  firmly  believe  we're 
hounding  somebody  who  could  and  would  help  us  if 
we  gave  him  the  chance " 

"Then  why  are  you  instructed  simply  to  *get  Peter- 
sham ?'  "  asked  Carson  Huntley,  after  a  moment  of 
startled  surprise. 

"Let  me  put  it  differently,  dear  boy."  Norroy 
smiled.  "Why  should  our  department  meddle  at  all 
with  so  small  a  matter  as  'getting'  an  unimportant 
youngster  who  traced  a  section  of  certain  machinery 
and  gave  it  to  a  girl?" 

"A  girl?" 

"Haven't  you  read  the  reports  ?"  asked  Norroy  im- 
patiently. He  took  the  elastic  band  from  the  packet, 
riffled  over  the  folded  "press  copies,"  the  impress  of 
the  official  green  ink  showing  tlirough  each.  Norroy, 
who  could  read  backward  almost  as  readily  as  the 
usual  way,  selected  one  after  a  leisurely  interval,  and 
handed  it  over. 


i8  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

**You  will  find  that  to  be  a  copy  of  the  reports  of 
Operator — 167,  D.  J.,  concerning  the  department's 
espionage  over  the  house  at  1923^  Sands  Street.  It 
begins  with  the  old  man  of  the  house  being  recognized 
as  one  of  the  visitors  to  Von  Klaper,  already  con- 
victed; it  goes  on  to  tell  how  he  was  followed  and  a 
watch  placed  over  Sands  Street,  front  and  back  en- 
trances. Now,  go  on  a  little  farther.  How  many 
times  do  you  read  the  item:  'Girl  went  out  alone?* 
Eh?" 

Huntley  scanned  one  page,  turned  it — another — a 
third,  a  fourth. 

"I've  already  counted  well  on  toward  twoscore." 

"Very  well.  Now  turn  back.  How  many  times  do 
you  see  this  item:  'Girl  returned  with  very  blond 
young  man,'  with  an  asterisk  following  the  anno- 
tation 'Petersham*  in  red  ink  in  the  column — eh?'* 

Huntley's  movements  were  much  as  before.  So 
was  his  answer: 

"Good!  Now  you  will  notice  that  this  item  occurs 
fifteen  times  at  least  before  it  has  this  addition:  'He 
went  in,  remained  short  period.*  ** 

"I  was  counting  those,  too,  Yorke." 

"Well,  how  many  times  does  that  addition  occur? 
You  see!  Only  half  a  dozen  times  out  of  perhaps 
thirty-three.     Doesn't  it  suggest  anything  to  you?'* 

Huntley  pondered. 

"You  mean  Petersham  was  attracted  by  the  girl  and 
fell  into  some  trap?'* 

Norroy  nodded. 

"But  the  tracing?** 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  BETRAYERS  19 

"Although  they  are  very  careful  to  avoid  saying  just 
what  it  was  a  tracing  of,  you  will  notice  that  it  is 
always  referred  to  as " 

Norroy  had  been  riffling  the  flimsies  again.  Having 
found  the  one  he  wanted,  he  read: 

"  'A  significant  part  of  an  invention  owned  exclu- 
sively by  this  government,  but  of  enormous  value  to 
any  warring  nation,  particularly  at  the  present  mo- 
ment.* Remember,  Carson,  'a  part!'  Don't  you  realize 
that  Petersham  was  probably  ignorant  of  the  value  of 
what  he  was  drawing;  that  it  might  have  seemed  tc> 
him  to  be  something  equally  applicable  to  some  inno- 
cent invention?  For  here  is  another  fact  the  D.  J. 
and  S.  S.  operators  do  not  seem  to  have  noticed — they 
were  too  busy  supposing  Petersham  to  be  guilty — the 
eld  man  posed  as  an  itwentor." 

It  was  plain  from  the  emphasis  Norroy  put  on  his 
last  words  that  he  considered  them  the  clincher  of  the 
argtunent.    Huntley  had  followed  his  train  of  thought. 

"I  see,"  he  said. 

"Now,  observe  again,"  Norroy  went  on,  "that  every 
letter  mailed  by  this  old  man  from  Sands  Street  was 
a  blind.  Those  letters  he  mailed  have  been  turned 
over  to  all  the  code  experts  in  the  state,  war,  and  navy 
building;  not  one  could  make  head  or  tail  of  them — 
see  their  reports.  And  this,  after  the  D.  J,  and  S.  S. 
people  had  also  puzzled  over  them  to  no  avail,  re- 
member." 

"They  thought  they  were  the  'news-from-home' 
type,"  objected  Huntley;  "the  kind  where  each  phrase 


20  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

like  *Aunt  Jemima's  sick  servant  is  well  again'  means 
some  other  phrase  in  some  pre-arranged " 

"But  the  letters  are  not  long  enough  for  that,"  said 
Norroy,  flecking  what  to  Carson  were  invisible  pieces 
of  lint  from  his  spotless,  creaseless  coat.  He  seemed 
so  entirely  absorbed  in  this  harmless  pastime  that  even 
the  man  who  knew  him  best,  Carson  Huntley,  and 
who  therefore  knew  that  busy  brain  was  never  idle, 
felt  the  same  annoyance  that  outsiders,  not  in  the 
secret  of  Norroy's  state-department  connections,  often 
felt  toward  "that  brainless  idler." 

"Not  long  enough  by  half.  Look  at  the  copies  at- 
tached." Norroy  waved  them  in  his  thin,  white 
fingers.    Huntley  took  them. 

"You  see,  half  a  page  or  so:  That  system  requires 
extremely  long,  complicated  sentences,  where  every 
real  word  is  expressed  by  half  a  dozen  fakes.  Strange 
how  easy  it  seems  to  be  to  overlook  such  incontest- 
able facts.  Well,  let  me  get  on  with  my  theory.  Why 
was  so  much  trouble  taken  over  this  particular  boy? 
I'll  venture  that  they  have  bought  tracings  of  other 
parts  that  go  to  make  up  this  whole  and  that  they 
haven't  taken  half  so  much  trouble.  For  observe,  they 
make  no  other  use  of  the  girl  and  of  the  old  man 
impersonating  an  inventor.  Again  see  the  reports. 
No  one  else  was  seen  at  192  J^  Sands  Street.  They 
went  to  see  no  one  else.  They  corresponded  with  no 
one  else.    They  had  no  telephone." 

He  paused  to  light  one  of  his  gold-tipped,  gold- 
crested  cigarettes,  and  blew  a  cloud  of  perfumed 
smoke  toward  the  fireplace. 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  BETRAYERS         21 

"Those  letters  were  all  plainly  addressed  to  people 
In  Germany — people  who  have  no  existence ;  I'll  swear 
to  that!" 

"But  the  tracing.  It  was  addressed  to  the  same 
people." 

"Precisely.  I'm  coming  to  that.  Before  that  trac- 
ing ever  left  Sands  Street  I'll  guarantee  a  tracing  of  it 
was  made.  Why?  Well,  follow  me  closely  now. 
They  must  have  known  they  were  being  watched  long 
before.  They  must  have  known  this  tracing — the 
original  tracing — would  fall  into  the  enemy's  hands. 
The  fact  that  they  knew  what  this  would  mean  to 
Petersham  is  evident  in  that  they  had  a  means  of  escape 
ready  for  him.  That  Petersham  did  not  know  what 
it  would  mean  to  him  was  evident  from  the  fact  that 
he  came  to  work  at  the  yard  that  day.  Would  he  have 
done  that  if  he  had  known  one  of  his  own  tracings  of 
a  governmental  secret  had  been  seized  in  the  mails  the 
night  before?  And  if  he  was  working  with  them, 
wouldn't  they  have  warned  him?  They  had  sense 
enough  to  decamp  themselves." 

He  blew  a  feathery  bit  of  ash  from  his  coat  sleeve 
with  the  air  of  one  concerned  in  a  serious  matter. 
Huntley  watched  him  with  an  affectionate  smile. 

"The  same  old  Yorke,"  he  meditated  aloud.  "Any 
one  would  think  what  you're  doing  now  is  the  matter 
of  moment;  what  you  are  talking  about  only  some 
slight,  unimportant,  everyday  matter.  Yet  you've  seen 
something  that  has  gotten  past  the  department  of  jus- 
tice, the  secret  service,  and  the  naval  intelligence  office. 


ti  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

You're  undoubtedly  right  so  far.  But  what  does  all 
this  prove?" 

"Granting  my  premises — which  you're  kind  enough 
to  do — it  proves:  First,  that  they  knew  they  couldn't 
bribe  young  Petersham  and  that  the  part  he  was  trac- 
ing was  important  enough  to  make  all  that  inventor- 
and-his-poor-but-beautiful-daughter  play  acting  neces- 
sary. Which  involved  the  use  of  one  of  their  prettiest 
women  and  one  of  their  smartest  men;  second,  that 
after  Petersham  was  thus  brought  to  the  attention  of 
their  chief  operator,  he  decided  the  young  fellow  had 
so  much  and  such  peculiar  ability  that  he  would  be 
worth  more  to  them  than  to  the  United  States.  Other- 
wise, wouldn't  they  have  let  him  be  led  off  to  Federal 
prison  instead  of  taking  so  many  risks  to  rescue  him. 
Third,  it  proves  that  men  at  the  head  of  this  system — 
particularly  the  man — is  pretty  well  equipped  with 
general  knowledge  about  what  is  going  on  in  the  navy 
yards  and  elsewhere.  Yes,  even  in  our  spy  services. 
It  looks  as  if  I'd  met  some  one  worthy  of  my  steel. 
And  I'm  glad  of  it,  Carson,"  said  Yorke  Norroy  sud- 
denly.   "I'm  tired  of  easy  victories  over  nonentities." 

"Don't  forget  present  instructions.  They  are  sim- 
ply:   'Get  Petersham.'  " 

"I  don't  think  that's  going  to  be  very  hard.  From 
what  this  sheaf  of  papers  tell  me  about  the  boy,  I 
imagine  he's  as  anxious  to  see  me  as  I  am  to  see  him — 
to  see  anybody  who'd  believe  his  story.  And  I'm  going 
to  give  him  the  chance.  Where  would  you  imagine 
he'd  be?  What  sort  of  place,  I  mean?  And  doing 
what?" 


THE   BOOK  OF  THE  BETRAYERS  23 

"Why  don't  you  make  all  of  your  questions  as  easy 
as  the  last,  Yorke  ?    Why,  lying  low,  I  should  say " 

"Precisely.  And  a  man  who's  lying  low  spends  most 
of  his  time  reading,  doesn't  he?  And  a  man  who  has 
every  reason  to  believe  half  a  dozen  kinds  of  police 
are  on  his  trail — what  does  he  read  first — by  prefer- 
ence? Particularly  in  Petersham's  case?  The  report 
says  he  has  a  mother  almost  at  death's  door,  and  that 
he  begged  and  pleaded  with  the  admiral  about  this, 
saying  if  news  of  his  being  in  jail  got  into  the  papers 
it  would  surely  kill  her " 

"The  answer  to  all  of  which  is,  I  suppose,  that  young 
Petersham  eagerly  devours  the  daily  papers?" 

"From  cellar  to  garret — from  front-page  headlines 
to  advertising  columns.  And  the  'Agony  Column'  is 
the  first  advertising,  next  to  the  theatrical,  that  every- 
body reads.  I  therefore  inserted  the  following  in  all 
the  principal  morning  papers. 

Norroy  tapped  thoughtfully  with  a  cigarette  at  the 
heads  of  a  sprawling  double  dragon  on  his  case  of 
Chinese  gold. 

"Here  it  is: 

DRAFTSMAN  WANTED 

If  C.  P.,  who  left  C.  &  R.  Department,  New  York,  N.  Y.,  two 
weeks  ago,  will  communicate  to  undersigned  where  he  can  be 
met,  undersigned  promises  to  come  alone.  If  C.  P.  is  what 
undersigned  believes  him  to  be,  he  will  eagerly  accept  this  offer. 
Box  31.    This  office. 

Norroy  flicked  the  press  cutting  from  which  he  had 
been  reading  across  the  table  to  Huntley. 


34  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

"This  morning?"  asked  the  latter. 

Norroy  nodded. 

"But  you  only  wired  to  Washington  for  me  this 
morning  ?" 

"I  was  quite  sure  I'd  get  a  reply  one  way  or  an- 
other," answered  Norroy,  yawning.  "If  Petersham 
was  as  guiltless  of  treason  as  I  believed,  and  was  free 
to  do  so,  he'd  jump  at  the  chance  of  clearing  himself. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  he  is  being  held,  the  people  who 
helped  him  to  escape  might  want  to " 

Norroy  did  not  finish  his  sentence,  for  the  door 
opened  just  then,  and  another  man  entered. 

"The  only  other  members  of  the  corps  in  New  York 
at  the  present  time,  chief,"  said  the  latter,  giving  a 
semi-official  salute,  "are  Ivison  James  and  Stanley  Jar- 
boe.  Oh,  and  there's  Carson  Huntley — fine !  As  you 
said  you  didn't  want  to  connect  with  the  police  or  the 
D.  J.  people,  I  gave  orders  for  the  servants  here  in  the 
club  to  be  ready  at  seven-thirty — six  of  them,  includ- 
ing Jules,  the  librarian,  and  the  bookkeeper,  and  three 
of  the  waiters.  You  know,  it  was  understood  by  them 
when  they  signed  on  here  that  they  might  be  used  for 
'police'  work;  we  called  it  that." 

"Good !  No,  I  don't  want  the  police  or  any  one  but 
ourselves.  I  can  tell  where  the  leak  comes  from  then. 
Glad  to  have  yoii^  with  me,  Bok.  Your  magnificent 
luck " 

"Can't  see  why  you  always  call  It  luck,  chief," 
grumbled  the  newcomer,  who,  coming  Into  the  light, 
Carson  Huntley  recognized  as  John  Baedeker  Bok,  he 
who  had  once  been  called  "the  youngest  and  luckiest" 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  BETRAYERS  25 

man  in  the  corps.  Time  had  somewhat  tamed  his 
shock  of  unruly,  wheat-colored  hair,  and,  just  as  most 
of  the  others  who  came  in  the  corps  young,  his  attire 
had  become  as  much  a  replica  of  Norroy's  as  he  could 
compass  it. 

"Did  Petersham  answer  as  you  expected?"  asked 
Huntley  impatiently.  Norroy  passed  him  an  envelope 
upon  which  the  number  of  a  "box"  and  the  name  of 
a  newspaper  were  neatly  typed. 

The  note  within  it  was  also  typewritten.  Carson 
Huntley  took  it  out,  and,  receiving  a  confirmatory  nod 
as  to  Bok,  read  it  aloud. 

There  was  neither  address,  date,  nor  salutation.  It 
read  simply: 

If  you  mean  what  you  advertise,  come  to  67  Van  Vhroon  Place 
at  eight  o'clock  to-night.  Just  walk  up  the  front  steps,  turn  the 
handle  of  the  door  inside  the  vestibule,  and  walk  in.  Door  will 
be  unlocked.  Sit  down  and  wait.  I  shall  not  come  in  until  I 
am  sure  no  one  is  following.  I  have  a  friend  watching  one  way, 
I  shall  be  watching  the  other.  When  I  come  in,  he  will  continue 
to  watch  outside,  and  will  warn  me  if  any  one  is  coming;  and 
if  this  is  a  trap  to  catch  me,  you  will  be  fooled;  for  I  will  kill 
myself  and  take  you  to  hell  with  me  to  carry  my  grip. 

If  you  mean  what  you  say,  I  can  convince  you  of  my  abso- 
lute innocence,  and,  more  than  that,  I  can  tell  you  things  the  gov- 
ernment ought  to  know  about  certain  German  spies. 

The  note  concluded  as  abruptly  as  it  began,  save 
that  the  initials,  "C.  P.,"  were  scrawled  in  lead  pencil 
after  the  above,  and  in  the  fashion  used  by  artists  and 
illustrators  in  signing  their  pictures.  That  is  to  say, 
the  "C.  P."  was  set  down  in  monogram  fashion,  curved 


26  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

and  jointured,  although  apparently  only  two  strokes 
of  the  pencil  had  been  used. 

Huntley  discovered  and  pointed  this  out  as  bearing 
some  evidence  as  to  the  authenticity  of  the  note.  Nor- 
roy  nodded.  He  had  opened  his  desk,  and  was  filling 
his  Chinese  cigarette  case  of  the  ruby-eyed,  golden 
dragons.  Bok  noted  idly  that  he  took  a  number  of 
cigarettes  from  the  glass-topped,  sandalwood  box  in 
which  they  were  generally  kept  in  bulk;  but  only  two 
from  another — a  curious-looking  Russian  humidor,  the 
key  to  which  himg  on  Norroy's  chain. 

"Must  be  mighty  expensive  cigarettes,"  Baedeker 
commented  as  Norroy  locked  the  Russian  humidor,  re- 
placed it  in  a  locked  drawer,  and  then  locked  the  desk. 

"So  they  are,"  Norroy  agreed,  but  elucidated  no 
further.  He  reached  for  the  note,  studying  it.  "Alto- 
gether a  remarkably  clever  fake,  if  it  is  a  fake,"  he 
said.  "Note  the  knowledge  of  psychology  displayed; 
tliat  is,  presuming  this  is  not  written  by  Peter- 
sham  ** 

"If    you   have    any   doubt "    began    Huntley, 

startled. 

"Presuming  it  is  not  written  by  Petersham — thank 
Heaven,  I  always  have  doubts,  Carson — the  curious 
mood  of  a  hunted,  desperate  boy  is  well  caught  when 
the  writer  says  if  it  is  a  trap  he  will  kill  himself  and 
me.  Now  a  less  clever  faker  would  have  been  afraid 
to  say  that  for  fear  I  would  not  come.  Note  also  the 
clever  way  in  which  the  supposed  faker  has  penetrated 
my  design;  knowing  it  is  not  Petersham  I  am  after. 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  BETRAYERS  27 

but  the  'German  spies'  he  promises  to  tell  me  about 

Yes,  very  clever!" 

He  gazed  at  it  in  admiration,  whistling  the  while; 
then,  catching  a  gUmpse  of  himself  in  the  mirror,  and 
noting  that  one  end  of  his  scarf  was  slightly  out  of 
focus,  he  frowned  at  his  reflection  as  he  earnestly 
strove  to  restore  his  attire  to  perfect  equilibrium. 

"Let  it  alone,  Yorke.    Be  serious " 

"I  am  never  more  serious,  Carson,  than  when  en- 
gaged in  overcoming  imperfections  of  attire.  How 
many  times  must  I  tell  you  that?  Man,  at  best,  is  so 
unlovely  a  creature  that  if  the  eye  can  be  deflected 
from  him  to  his  attire,  it  is  every  man's  duty  to  array 
himself  in  the  most  becoming  fashion  possible.  Con- 
sider the  huge,  clumsy  foot  of  man  ,then  tliink  of  the 
little,  perfectly  formed  hoof  of  a  deer — an  animal 
weighting  twice  as  much.    Consider " 

"Peace,  peace !"  pleaded  Huntley,  holding  both  hands 
to  his  ears.  "I  promise  never  to  do  it  again.  But, 
Yorke,  don't  you  find  it  suspicious  that  the  writer  of 
this  letter  lays  so  much  stress  on  your  coming  alone  ?" 

"Wouldn't  you  if  you  were  Petersham?  No,  Hunt- 
ley, the  letter  is  irreproachable.  That  is  its  only  fault. 
It  is  too  irreproachable,  too  calmly  considered  for  pos- 
sible objections  of  this  sort  on  my  part,  and  the  typ- 
ing is  deliberate  and  unhurried.  The  fact  that  it  is 
typewritten  also  gives  rise  to  suspicion;  knowing  as 
these  people  must,  that  I  could  secure  specimens  of 
Petersham's  handwriting,  they  would  not  dare  a  note 
in  any  other  hand.    And,  as  I  still  cling  to  my  belief 


28  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

in  the  boy's  innocence,  he  would  not  write  it  for  them ; 
that  is — if  it  is  a  fake." 

"But  which  do  you  think  it  is?"  asked  Huntley  in 
an  agony  of  apprehension.  He  loved  Norroy  as  one 
brother  sometimes  loves  another. 

"Frankly,  Carson,"  answered  Norroy  in  his  most 
aggravating  drawl,  "I  don't  know.  It's  the  sort  of 
letter  Petersham  ought  to  write  if  he  saw  the  adver- 
tisement; it  also  is  the  sort  of  letter  the  very  clever 
man  who  arranged  for  Petersham's  escape  would  write 
if  he  saw  it." 

Baedeker  Bok  had  an  annoying  way  of  saying,  at 
the  right  moment,  the  sort  of  thing  Carson  Huntley 
would  have  liked  to  say  himself. 

"Particularly  if  they  knew  who  was  after  them," 
Bok  said,  now  trying  to  imitate  Norroy's  drawl. 

"Exactly,"  agreed  Norroy,  and  arose,  for  at  Jules' 
discreet  knock  Carson  had  opened  the  door  and  they 
had  been  apprised  that  their  dinner  was  served. 

"It  was  necessary  to  have  it  earlier  to-night,  you 
will  understand,  sir,"  explained  Jules,  with  a  certain 
added  dignity  that  came  from  the  knowledge  that  he 
was  to  be  a  partner  of  the  risks  "his  gentlemen"  were 
to  take  on  this  particular  night.  "But  all  of  us  will 
await  your  word  at  seven-thirty,  Mr.  Norroy.  We  will 
wear  dark  clothes  and  hats  and  rubber-soled  shoes. 
Correct,  sir?" 

Norroy  nodded,  and  the  trio  followed  Jules  below. 
Messieurs  Jarboe  and  James,  he  told  them,  had  re- 
turned home  to  change  their  clothes  after  receiving  in- 
structions from  Mr.  Bok,  but  would  return  shortly. 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  BETRAYERS  29 

"Which  one  of  us  is  to  go  to  the  house?"  asked 
Huntley  presently, 

"I,  personally,  shall  follow  this  particular  worm- 
hole  into  the  rotten  tree,  even  if  it  means  sticking  my 
head  in  a  hornet's  nest,"  returned  Norroy,  smiling. 
"The  rest  of  you  will  have  written  instructions.  Here 
they  are," 

He  held  up  a  sealed  envelope.  "And  a  map  of  the 
district,"  Norroy  added.  "I  scouted  around  there  this 
afternoon." 

"You  can't  mean  to  go  alone,  Yorke,"  implored 
Huntley.  "You  know  what  a  long  score  Germany  has 
against  you,  and  if  there  is  a  leak,  and  they  know  who 
you  are,  why  you'll  be  playing  into  their  hands.  Have 
you  forgotten  that  if  it  hadn't  been  for  you  Germany 
would  have  edged  her  way  into  South  America?  Nor 
would  we  have  built  the  Panama  Canal  if  you  hadn't 
nullified  their  buying  up  of  all  the  old  De  Lesseps 
scrip  by " 

Norroy  held  up  his  hand, 

"At  any  rate,"  said  Carson  desperately,  "your  pres- 
ence in  any  affair  spells  ill  luck  for  them.  You  out- 
witted Von  Ladenburg  and  Ehricke — and  killed  them. 
And  you  know  as  well  as  I  that  if  they  know  you  are 
in  on  this  that  they  will  kill  you.  For  it  means  that, 
sooner  or  later,  their  beautifully  built-up  spy  system 
will  be  shattered.  Now  you're  too  important  to  the 
country  to  risk  your  life  just  now  when  your  country 
needs  you  as  she  never  needed  you  before."  He  gulped 
back  something;  then,  quite  simply: 

"Let  me  go,  Yorke." 


30  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

"Remember,"  laughed  Norroy,  "that  it's  probably 
only  poor  little  Petersham  we're  suspecting  of  all  these 
dark  possibilities.  Not  another  word  until  after 
dinner." 

He  finished  his  soup  with  hearty  appetite.  Huntley 
pushed  his  away  untasted.  Of  the  other  courses  he  ate 
little,  but  he  would  have  eaten  none  at  all  had  he  heard 
what  Norroy  heard  when  summoned  to  the  telephone 
for  the  second  time. 

The  first  time  it  had  been  his  valet  who  said  that 
some  one  had  rung  up  and  had  demanded  to  speak  with 
Norroy  in  so  peremptory  a  manner  and  had  warned 
the  valet  that  it  was  dangerous  for  his  master  not  to 
hear  what  he  had  to  say,  that  the  man  had  promised 
to  call  Norroy  and  give  him  the  other's  name. 

"And  what  was  it,  Valentine?" 

"Petersham,  sir." 

"Connect  him  when  he  calls  again.  He  said  he 
would?"  ^ 

"In  five  minutes,  sir." 

It  was  in  reality  less  than  that,  for  Norroy  had 
hardly  had  time  to  sit  down  to  the  roast  and  begin  to 
carve  when  he  was  summoned  back  to  the  booth  again. 
He  motioned  to  Carson  to  take  the  knife,  but  Carson 
was  staring  so  gloomily  into  space  that  he  did  not  see 
him;  so  Norroy,  smiling  affectionately  at  his  friend, 
gave  it  to  Bok,  and,  returning,  took  up  the  receiver 

"You  are  Petersham?" 

"And  this  is  Mr.  Norroy?    Thank  God!" 

The  boy  at  the  other  end  of  the  wire  was  gasping. 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  BETRAYERS  31 

He  heeded  Norrcy's  advice  to  get  his  breath  before 
speaking  again: 

"Don't  go  there  to-night,  Mr.  Norroy.  I  didn't 
write  that  letter.  I  only  heard  about  it  a  Httle  while 
ago  when  they  were  getting  ready  to  go  over  after 
you.  I  never  heard  of  you  myself,  but  they  have,  and 
they  mean  business.  You  were  right  if  you  thought 
I  wasn't  guilty,  and  I'm  going  to  prove  it  by  coming 
anywhere  you  say  if  it  will  keep  you  from  going  to 
Van  Vhroon  Place.  If  this  is  a  trap  to  catch  me,  I'll 
have  to  be  caught  in  it,  for,  Mr.  Norroy,  I'm  too  good 
an  American  to  let  a  man  who  seems  to  terrorize  them 
so  much  lose  his  life.  For  God  knows  what  will  hap- 
pen if  we  go  to  war — if  what  I've  seen  and  heard  in 
the  last  two  weeks  means  what  it  seems  to  mean " 

All  this  in  as  close  to  a  single  breath  as  the  boy 
could  compass  it. 

"Take  your  time,"  advised  Norroy  kindly. 

"But  you  won't  go?  I've  risked  my  life  to  get  to 
this  telephone;  the  man  they  left  behind  nearly  did 
for  me.  And  I'm  risking  my  liberty  coming  to  you — 
but  it's  better  that  way  than  knowing  I  let  you  go  to 
your  death.    Y^ou  won't  go?" 

"What  time  will  you  be  here?" 

"As  soon  as  I  can.  I'm  over  in  Jersey  somewhere ; 
I've  been  running  across  fields  and  along  roads  until  I 
reached  the  first  phone.  I'll  ask  the  man  here  how 
long  it  takes  to  get  to  New  York.  I've  asked  him; 
about  an  hour  ^d  a  half.  He's  going  to  hitch  up  to 
take  me  to  the  train.    You'll  wait?" 


32  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

**I  will  meet  you  at  my  apartment  in  an  hour  and 
a  half,"  Norroy  promised. 

He  returned  to  the  dining  room,  saying  nothing  to 
his  companions.  The  arrival  of  Jarboe  and  Ivison 
James,  however,  put  an  end  to  his  indecision.  He  sum- 
moned the  steward. 

"Jules,"  he  said  suddenly,  "I've  changed  my  plans. 
Let  things  stand.  Get  your  men  together.  We  start  as 
soon  as  we  can.    Hurry !" 

"What  was  that  message  on  the  phone,  Yorke?" 
asked  Carson,  by  no  means  deceived  as  to  the  serious- 
ness Norroy  was  trying  to  keep  out  of  his  eyes. 

"It  was  from  Petersham." 

"Then— it's  all  right?" 

"I  don't  know,"  answered  Norroy  sharply ;  "but  I'm 
going  to  find  out.  Ready,  everybody  ?  No,  let  us  get 
our  own  things,  Johnson.    You  get  yours." 

He  left  the  club  in  advance  of  the  others,  and  alone, 
despite  all  protests.  But  he  left  behind  in  the  sealed 
envelope  a  little  sketch  of  the  neighborhood  that  he 
had  visited  that  afternoon  in  disguise.  It  was  a  map 
of  six  streets.  The  Van  Vhroon  Place  house  was 
marked  by  a  red  star.  A  corner,  a  block  to  the  north 
of  it,  was  marked  with  a  green  circle,  while  for  a 
little  French  cafe  a  block  to  the  south  stood  a  blue  star. 

Norroy's  last  instructions,  supplementing  those  writ- 
ten on  the  map,  had  been: 

"Leave  the  club  one  at  a  time,  half  of  you  by  the 
rear  entrance.  Carson,  take  Bok,  Jules,  and  two  of 
the  waiters,  go  to  the  blue-starred  place,  wait  five 
minutes,  then  start  slowly  toward  Van  Vhroon  Place, 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  BETRA\^RS  33 

the  front  entrance.  Ivison,  take  Jarboe  and  the  others. 
Same  instructions,  save  that  you  go  to  the  green  circle 
and  approach  the  place  by  the  back.  Unless  you  get 
some  reassuring  message  from  me  a  few  minutes  after 
you  get  there,  break  in!" 

He  had  hurried  out  after  that,  carefully  keeping  his 
eyes  from  meeting  the  reproachful  ones  of  Carson 
Huntley. 


CHAPTER  III 

Tells   How  Yorke   Norroy   Fell  Into   Enemy 
Alien  Hands  and  How  He  Fell  Out  Again 

WHEN  Norroy  alighted  from  the  taxlcab  that 
had  taken  him  to  Van  Vhroon  Place,  he  hesi- 
tated before  paying  the  bill.  Should  he  bid 
the  fellow  wait?  In  case  of  sudden  treachery,  he 
might  manage  to  alarm  the  man  outside,  who  would, 
in  turn,  communicate  his  alarm  to  Carson's  squad,  who 
would  have  reached  the  street  before  the  chauffeur 
could  leave  it. 

He  turned  and  looked  at  the  house.  It  was  dark, 
save  for  a  dim  illumination  that  percolated  through 
first-floor  window  curtains  and  draperies.  The  fronts 
of  the  other  houses  were  far  from  bright;  many  had 
"For  Rent"  or  "Sale"  signs  in  their  windows.  The 
street  was  very  quiet.  From  the  East  River,  that 
could  be  seen  from  its  rear  windows,  came  the  hoot 
of  a  passing  tug,  the  scream  of  a  steamer's  siren.  Evi- 
dently it  was  foggy  out  there. 

He  suddenly  blamed  himself  for  not  having  requisi- 
tioned one  of  the  boats  of  the  river  police  to  lie  in 
wait  just  off  the  old  stone  jetty  below.  It  was  not 
that  he  had  not  thought  of  it;  only  one  never  knew 
whom  to  trust  these  days,  and,  fearing  an  alarm  might 

34 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  BETRAYERS  35 

reach  the  enemy,  Norroy  had  relied  upon  men  directly 
under  his  own  control. 

But  the  moments  were  passing  quickly  now.  Soon 
the  two  squads  would  start  for  the  house.  Nor  was 
this  his  only  precaution.  Cursing  himself  for  a  cow- 
ard, he  paid  the  man  and  ascended  the  steps,  the  high 
brownstone  steps  of  an  earlier  architecture,  when,  no 
doubt,  Van  Vhroon  Place  had  been  the  habitat  of 
well-to-do  burgesses. 

Now !  Well,  at  their  worst,  these  houses  could  be 
nothing  more  than  rooming  or  boarding  houses. 

He  entered  the  vestibule,  the  door  to  which  had  been 
left  flung  wide.  He  tried  the  second  door.  It  yielded 
to  a  turn  of  the  knob,  and  so  suddenly  that  Norroy 
stumbled  into  a  dark  hallway. 

The  only  light  he  could  see,  above  or  below,  came 
from  what  had  once  been  a  drawing-room  to  the 
right.  Before  him  he  could  dimly  see  stairs  disappear- 
ing in  the  darkness  above.  The  rear  of  the  hall  in 
which  he  stood  was  also  shadowed  in  darkness. 

He  stepped  toward  the  illumination,  a  little  patch  of 
which  filtered  through  the  drawing-room  doorway. 
He  entered,  but  warily. 

He  was  in  a  room  that  was  quite  empty,  save  for  a 
candle  stuck  in  a  bottle  on  the  high  mantel  of  dark- 
veined  marble,  and  a  chair  and  table  somewhere  near 
the  center  of  the  room.  He  remembered  that  the  note 
had  said  he  was  to  sit  down  and  wait. 

He  sat  down. 

The  next  second  he  regretted  it.  For,  quickly  as 
he  sprang  to  his  feet  and  wildly  as  he  clutched  for 


36  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

the  sides  of  the  floor,  they  shot  past  entirely  too 
rapidly. 

It  could  not  have  been  ten  seconds  between  the 
time  he  sat  down  on  the  chair  and  the  time  he  found 
himself  ringed  around  by  hostile  faces.  He  was  still 
sitting  in  the  chair;  the  chair  still  stood  firmly  on  the 
section  of  floor  on  which  it  had  stood  when  he  sat 
on  it.  But  chair  and  section  of  floor  had  both  de- 
scended to  the  basement,  and  their  occupant  was  star- 
ing at  the  square  hole  in  the  ceiling  through  which  he 
had  come. 

"If  you  will  be  so  good  as  to  rise  so  that  it  can  be 
replaced  ?'* 

The  man,  who  spoke  with  no  trace  of  foreign  ac- 
cent, indicated  the  hole  above  and  the  floor  beneath. 
Norroy  bowed  and  stepped  to  the  basement  bricks. 
Another  man,  one  off  somewhere  in  the  darkness,  re- 
leased a  lever,  and  chair  and  table  rose  slowly.  Where 
the  hole  had  been  was  now  white  ceiling. 

Norroy  glanced  about  him,  then  moved  a  little 
farther  back,  so  that  his  back  was  to  the  wall.  He 
was  in  an  ordinary  basement  room,  save  that  two 
huge  timbers  had  been  placed  against  the  door  that 
opened  into  the  front  areaway  and  the  windows  had 
been  boarded  up,  A  flight  of  stairs  gave  access  to  the 
upper  regions,  and  there  was  a  door  open  at  the  rear 
which  gave  upon  another  basement  room. 

Six  men  were  present.  He  did  not  doubt,  from  the 
prevalence  of  beards  among  them,  that  they  were  dis- 
guised ;  indeed,  once  the  thought  came,  the  dull  lif  eless- 
ness  of  their  hair  was  apparent. 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE   BETRAYERS  37 

Three  men,  one  of  whom  had  released  the  lever, 
stood  between  him  and  the  front  entrance.  One  stood 
at  the  stairway,  another  at  the  rear  door.  Each  man 
held  an  automatic ;  one  half  concealing  his  in  his  sleeve, 
another  twirling  his  around  his  finger;  the  others  in 
a  more  usual  fashion. 

As  Norroy  took  in  these  details,  he  noted  another — 
one  that,  for  once,  gave  him  a  sharp,  sickening  pain 
about  his  heart.  He  drew  a  sudden,  quick  breath, 
mastered  himself,  looked  again. 

Yes,  each  automatic  was  hooded  queerly,  and  Nor- 
roy knew  what  such  hoods  meant.  These  automatics 
were  noiseless. 

The  sixth  man,  he  who  had  spoken,  bore  every 
mark  by  which  the  young  university-trained — Har- 
vard for  preference — professional  man  is  generally 
known — from  the  conservatively  cut  clothes  of  dark 
worsted  to  the  tiny  "frat"  pin  on  the  lower  part  of 
his  waistcoat.  He  was  distinguished,  perhaps,  by  the 
fact  that  his  skin  was  very,  very  white,  his  hair  very, 
very  dark — blue  black,  in  fact.  Had  Norroy  been  a 
witness  of  Petersham's  escape  from  the  navy  yard,  he 
would  have  known  this  man  for  the  second  stranger 
with  the  department-of- justice  badge. 

He  spoke  again: 

"Mr.  Norroy,  we  have  been  warned  against  you. 
And  I  am  sorry.  But  we  are  engaged  in  a  cause  that 
demands  utter  sacrifice  of  personal  feeling.  Had  we 
lived  in  other  times  and  met,  I  am  sure  we  would  have 
been  friends.     As  it  is — well,  I  can  only  say  I  am 


38  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

sorry.    Is  there  any  message  you  wish  to  leave,  verbal 

or  written " 

"Yes,"  said  Norroy,  "if  I  may- 


"Certainly.  Just  hold  both  your  hands  above  your 
head,  please.  Now,  Adelbert,  Kurt,  take  his  weapons 
away.  And  hurry !  No  doubt  he  has  friends  coming 
in  a  very  short  while " 

The  two  men  came  forward,  both  from  behind. 
They  turned  Norroy's  pockets  inside  out,  placing  on 
the  table  watch,  cigarette  case,  money.  But  no 
weapons. 

"I  have  two  requests,  sir,"  said  Norroy  quietly. 
**First  to  leave  a  last  message  with  you.  Second  to 
smoke  a  cigarette.    Have  I  permission?" 

The  other  nodded.  A  rough  kitchen  table  was  hur- 
riedly thrust  forward,  a  chair  pulled  up,  pen,  ink,  and 
paper  provided.  Norroy  sat  down,  and,  opening  his 
cigarette  case  took  therefrom  one  of  the  cigarettes 
Bok  had  seen  him  transfer  from  the  locked  Russian 
humidor. 

This  he  lit  and  inhaled  deeply,  twice.  Then  he 
began  to  write. 

He  wrote  steadily  for  a  moment;  then,  picking  up 
the  cigarette,  inhaled  twice  again,  and  twice  as  deeply. 
Whereupon,  for  the  second  time,  he  placed  it  on  the 
edge  of  the  table  and  picked  up  his  pen. 

"You  must  hurry,  Mr.  Norroy,"  warned  the  man 
with  the  fraternity  pin. 

Norroy  was  never  to  forget  those  minutes  of  agony ; 
of  never  knowing  when  the  patience  of  his  watchers 
would  be  exhausted  and  his  death,  six  times  over. 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  BETRAYERS  39 

come  flying  at  him  noiselessly  from  out  those  hooded 
weapons.  So  quiet  was  it  he  could  hear  his  own 
breathing  and  that  of  the  others  as  well.  It  seemed 
hardly  credible  that  these  quiet-mannered,  harmless- 
looking  men  had  agreed  to  fire  at  a  given  moment  and 
share  the  blame  of  his  death  between  the  six  of  them. 
Yet  it  was  apparent  that  this  was  so. 

Their  attitudes  were  rigid.  The  man  with  the  fra- 
ternity pin  took  out  his  watch  and  raised  his  gun. 
Norroy  looked  up.  Each  of  the  others  had  followed 
his  example.  They  stood  statue-like,  right  arm  ex- 
tended, the  hand  of  each  holding  toward  him  the 
head  of  that  hateful  little  hood — as  poisonous  as  a 
cobra's. 

"We  give  you  one  minute  to  finish  in,  Mr.  Norroy," 
said  the  man,  eyes  on  his  watch;  then  to  the  others^ 
"When  I  close  my  watch,  fire !" 

Evidently  he  was  counting.  Norroy  bent  over^ 
writing  rapidly.  But  his  pen  had  not  finished  another 
line  before  there  was  a  dull  explosion  in  the  center  of 
the  room,  at  the  edge  of  the  table  where  the  cigarette 
lay.  Immediately  the  room  began  to  fill  with  smoke, 
sickening  smoke — ^volumes  of  it. 

Before  any  of  the  others  had  recovered  themselves, 
and  while  the  smoke  was  so  thick  that  friend  and  foe 
looked  alike,  Norroy,  who,  for  all  his  writing  had 
never  taken  his  eyes  from  the  cigarette,  now  sprang 
lightly  to  the  table  top,  and  from  there  launched  him- 
self straight  at  the  stairway.  He  fell,  at  the  end  of 
his  long  jump,  arms  extended.    They  fastened  around 


40  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

a  pair  of  legs  above,  and  a  man  hurtled  over  Norroy's 
head. 

Below  the  smoke  was  clearing  away.  Above  came 
the  slam  of  a  door  and  the  shooting  of  a  bolt. 

Norroy,  in  the  hallway,  laughed  breathlessly.  Then 
he  ran  to  the  vestibule  and  blew  long  and  loud  on  the 
whistle  he  carried.  In  response  came  whistle  blasts 
from  both  front  and  rear,  and  but  a  brief  time  elapsed 
before  the  pattering  of  footsteps  culminated  in  the  ap- 
pearance of  Carson  in  the  doorway,  behind  him  John 
Baedeker  Bok. 

At  the  back,  the  sound  of  blows  on  woodwork 
began. 

"Run  back,  Bok,  and  let  them  in — ^James  and  his 
lot.  Carson,  you  and  Jules  watch  ^that  basement  en- 
trance. Shoot  the  first  man  who  tries  to  come  out; 
don't  warn — shoot!  Ah,  James,  you're  just  in  time; 
take  Jarboe  back  with  you  and  two  other  men  and 
watch  that  rear-basement  entrance.  The  rest  of  you 
come  with  me.    Who  has  an  extra  gun  ?" 

One  was  pressed  into  his  hand  in  tlie  darkness. 

"Now  give  me  an  electric  torch,  and  follow  where 
it  leads." 

He  led  the  way  down  the  dark  hallway  to  the 
kitchen.  Outside  the  butler's  pantry  was  a  bolted 
door.  Norroy  unbolted  and  stood  back  of  the  door  as 
he  pulled  it  open,  peering  through  the  crack  made  by 
door  and  jamb. 

It  was  still  lighted  up  below,  apparently  as  before 
"by  candles,  although  the  reek  of  a  peculiar  smoke 
whirled  into  the  draft. 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  BETRAYERS  41 

**You  may  as  well  give  up  down  there,"  called  Nor- 
roy.  "My  men  have  orders  to  shoot  if  you  break  out 
front  or  back.  If  you  surrender  quietly,  it  will  be  the 
best  for  you." 

Having  waited  in  vain  for  any  response,  Norroy 
gave  the  order  to  advance  two  by  two,  each  hugging 
the  side  of  the  wall.  In  this  fashion  he  came  into 
view  of  the  basement  room,  closely  followed  by 
Baedeker  Bok.  Each  held  his  weapon  upraised  and 
ready. 

But  there  was  no  one  to  use  them  on.  The  room 
was  empty. 

"Look  for  them  in  the  next  room,"  called  Norroy, 
throwing  the  long,  level  beam  of  the  electric  torch  in 
that  direction.     It  also  illumined  only  emptiness. 

Norroy  followed  the  light,  the  others  skirmishing 
about  him.  They  heard  his  exclamation  of  disap- 
pointment, and  crowded  around.  He  was  standing  by 
a  small  door,  like  the  entrance  of  a  rabbit  hutch,  that, 
the  light  revealed,  led  to  a  lower  level. 

"One  of  you  follow  that — quickly.  It's  no  use, 
though ;  they've  gone.  Bok !  Hurry  up  to  James  and 
Jarboe  and  see  if  you  can  make  out  some  small  craft 
just  leaving  the  old  stone  jetty  below.  If  you  do,  tell 
them  to  fire  on  it,"  he  added  when  Bok  was  halfway 
up  the  stairs. 

Norroy  crossed  to  the  center  of  the  first  room  and 
picked  up  the  fragments  of  the  cigarette  he  had  lighted 
when  writing  his  "last  message."  The  paper  lay  where 
he  had  left  it,  and  it  read : 


43  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

Better  luck  next  time,  gentlemen.  Examine  the  cigarette  that 
caused  the  explosion,  and  you  will  see  we  have  taken  a  page  out 
of  your  book.  I  trust  this  will  be  the  "last  message"  I  ever  have 
occasion  to  write  you,  as  I  expect  shortly  to  have  the  lot  of  you 
in  jail.     That 

It  was  then  that  the  "smoke  powder"  especially  de- 
signed for  barrage  fire  by  the  Germans,  that  troops 
might  move  forward  under  a  screen  of  thick  smoke, 
had  been  reached  by  the  burning  tobacco  which  had 
formed  the  other  half  of  the  cigarette. 

Norroy  dropped  message  and  cigarette  fragments 
back  to  the  table  as  one  of  his  men  returned  from  the 
passageway  with  the  news  that  it  sloped  down  sheerly 
to  the  river.  At  the  same  moment  the  sound  of  scat- 
tering shots  was  heard. 

"Checkmate,"  he  smiled.  "Now  to  hear  what  young 
Petersham  has  to  say." 


CHAPTER  IV 

In  Which  Our  Hero  Tells  About  the  "Black 

Book'' 

AFFAIRS  were  as  Norroy  supposed  them  over- 
head. James  and  Jarboe's  men  had  taken  scat- 
tering shots  at  a  little  motor  boat  creeping 
away  in  the  darkness,  but  with  no  apparent  effect. 

Norroy  called  off  his  men,  dismissed  all  save  the 
secret  agents,  and  took  those  as  far  as  his  home,  giving 
them  some  necessary  orders,  chiefly  that  they  hold 
themselves  in  readiness  for  the  morrow. 

"It  was  my  fault,"  he  said  as  he  bade  all  save  Car- 
son good  night.  "I  should  have  had  the  river  police, 
too.  But  I  was  so  afraid  the  whole  plan  would  be 
betrayed  if  I  let  outsiders  in.  It's  hard  to  know  what 
to  do  when  fighting  such  a  widespread  espionage  sys- 
tem.   I  hope  to  know  more  about  it  later  to-night ** 

He  glanced  at  his  watch ;  he  had  still  a  quarter-hour 
margin  before  Petersham  would  arrive.  So  that  when 
that  young  gentleman  did,  he  found  Mr.  Norroy  alone 
in  slippers  and  velvet  jacket,  lounging  before  the  fire. 

"You  may  lock  up  for  the  night  and  go  to  bed, 
Valentine,"  said  his  master.  "I  may  be  some  little 
time  with  this  young  gentleman.  Disconnect  the  tele- 
phone, too.     I  do  not  wish  to  be  disturbed  until  to- 

43 


44  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

morrow  morning.  If  you  were  playing  a  double 
game,"  he  said  to  Petersham,  "you  would  find  it  re- 
markably easy.  I  am  alone,  without  a  weapon,  and 
cannot  phone  unless  I  go  to  some  little  trouble.  But 
sit  down.  And  have  a  drink.  You  look  as  though  you 
needed  it." 

Petersham  did.  He  was  not  the  lad  the  navy  yard 
knew;  far  from  it.  His  face  was  hard  and  set,  and 
there  was  a  staring  look  about  his  eyes  that  seemed 
to  tell  of  some  horror  experienced  at  no  very  distant 
hour.  His  clothing  was  disordered,  his  boots  and 
turned-up  trousers  muddy,  and  he  wore  a  piece  of  silk 
wound  about  his  neck  and  secured  with  a  tie  pin  in 
place  of  collar  and  scarf.  One  sleeve  had  a  jagged 
tear  along  its  entire  length,  and  was  held  in  place  by  a 
safety  pin. 

Norroy's  eyes  rested  on  these  eccentricities  of  attire 
as  he  handed  Petersham  a  glass  of  steaming  punch, 
compounded  from  materials  at  his  elbow.  The  boy 
noted  Norroy's  gaze  the  while  he  sniffed  thirstily  at 
the  lemon-peel  aroma. 

"Drink   first,"   directed   Norroy.      "Now — cigar — 

cigarette Those  are  some  very  si>ecial  ones  of 

my  own.  Same  tobacco  from  a  sun-kissed  wall  in 
Smyrna  as  a  certain  Oriental  potentate  favors. 
Now ** 

"You  were  noticing  my  sleeve  and  collar  ?"  ex- 
claimed Petersham  excitedly.  "That  happened  to- 
night. There  was  a  man  left  behind,  and  we  fought 
and  rolled  the  floor  and  tore  at  one  another's  throats 
until  I  got  the  gun  on  the  mantel.     Then " 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  BETRAYERS  45 

The  look  of  horror  deepened  in  his  eyes. 

"I  had  a  right  to  do  it !"  he  said  passionately.  "They 
meant  to  kill  you.     Didn't  I?' 

"Doubtless,"  agreed  Norroy.  "But  I've  yet  to  hear 
the  whole  story.  Begin  with  the  time  you  met  the 
girl  who  lived  at  192^  Sands  Street — the  daughter 
of  the  inventor " 

"Inventor?  Bah!"  Interrupted  the  boy  angrily. 
"Inventor  of  lies,  yes!  And  she Oh,  Mr.  Nor- 
roy, you  wouldn't  believe  she  could  do  such  things  if 
you  saw  her.    She " 

"I  understand." 

"No,  you  don't !  I  was  In  love  with  her.  I'd  never 
met  a  girl  like  thdt  before.  You  see,  I've  done  nothing 
but  work — work — work — and  think  of  getting  ahead 
so  that  I'd  have  a  comfortable  home  for  mother  and 
me.     Then  Hilda  came  along " 

"I  suppose  she  arranged  some  accident?" 

"Yes;  I  see  that  now.  She  dropped  her  purse,  and 
I  ran  a  block  to  catch  her.  Somehow  I  found  out  she 
was  a  stranger  and  friendless,  and  that  she  and  her 
father  were  in  much  the  same  fix  as  mother  and  I. 
So  I  took  her  straight  home  to  my  mother  that  very 
afternoon,  that  she  wouldn't  think  I  thought  any  the 
less  of  her  because  she'd  let  me  know  her  informally. 
I  was  so  sure  she  was  sweet  and  good." 

He  paused,  for  his  voice  had  a  dangerous  tremor 
in  it. 

"Mr.  Norroy,  isn't  it  possible  they  roped  her  into  it 
just  as  they  roped  me?  If  you  could  have  seen 
her " 


46  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

"I  have  seen  many  of — just  that  kind,  my  boy." 

In  the  silence  that  followed,  Norroy  saw  the  boy's 
hands  clench.  But  they  unclenched  again,  as  with  a 
hopeless  gesture  Petersham  went  on,  answering  his 
own  question: 

"I  suppose  not.     But  when  mother  was  taken  sick. 

she  nursed  her — oh,  so  tenderly!     Still Well, 

anyhow,  my  thoughts  about  that  home  for  mother  and 
me  had  some  additions  that  afternoon — just  as  the 
proposed  house  had.  There  was  to  be  one  little  wing 
for  old  Mr.  L'Estrange,  her  father — Heaven  knows 
what  his  name  really  is ! — and  another  for  my  mother, 
and  the  middle  part  was  for  Hilda  and  me.  I  was 
dreadfully  in  earnest  about  all  this ;  you  have  no  idea. 
And  Hilda  was  so  sweet  when  she  told  me  she'd  wait 
for  me,  no  matter  how  long,  for  I  was  the  only  one. 
You  see,  I'd  explained  to  her  that  when  I  passed  the 
examination  for  assistant  constructor  I'd  probably  be 
sent  far  away  somewhere  and  that  we  couldn't  afford 
to  marry  except  on  a  junior  lieutenant's  pay ;  it's  ruin 
for  an  ensign  to  try  it.  I  told  you  she  was  so  sweet. 
Said  mother  should  live  with  them  until  I  came  back. 

"Then  one  day  she  came  to  me  all  smiles.  Her 
father's  invention  was  practically  accepted.  That 
meant  enormous  royalties,  and  we  could  get  married, 
anyhow — even  on  an  ensign's  pay.  After  a  few  days 
her  face  was  as  long  as  could  be  when  she  met  me. 
There  was  one  fault  to  the  invention.  That  must  be 
overcome  or  the  thing  was  a  failure. 

"I  suppose  you  know  by  this  time  that  it  was  a  sea 
plane  that  could  be  released  from  a  submarine — or 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  BETRAYERS  47 

maybe  you  don't.  The  only  fault  to  this  invention 
of  his  was  the  question  of  compactness.  Now,  I  had 
just  been  given  some  data  by  the  constructor  as  to 
how  spare  submarine  parts  could  be  stowed  away  in 
the  mother  ship;  one  of  those  huge  submersibles  such 
as  Germany  sent  across  this  year — the  Bremen,  for 
instance.  The  mother  ship  was  to  carry  extra  vital 
parts.  And  the  question  of  compactness  had  come  up. 
Well,  after  I'd  drawn  plan  after  plan  for  the  con- 
structor, he  finally  got  what  he  wanted  and  told  me  to 
make  an  extra  large-sized  drawing. 

"There's  no  use  my  explaining  the  system,  is 
there  ?" 

"Keep  your  mouth  shut  about  it — or  anything  like 
it — from  now  on,"  advised  Norroy. 

"Well,  you  see  my  situation.  If  Hilda  hadn't  been 
so  outspoken  in  her  hatred  for  Germany,  And  her 
father,  too.  His  one  idea  was  to  produce  something 
that  would  hurt  the  kaiser's  chances.  They  talked  a 
lot  about  how  they  and  other  Lorrainers  had  been 
treated  since  the  war  began  because  of  their  sympathy 
for  France.  They  claimed  to  come  from  Alsace- 
Lorraine,  you  see,  and  I  knew  all  about  that  situation 
— or  thought  I  did.  Well,  it's  hard  to  explain  maybe 
to  a  man  who  isn't  in  love,  but " 

"I  suppose  they  convinced  you  that  they  wanted 
to  help  the  Allies  beat  Germany,  and  that  this  inven- 
tion was  to  be  sold  to  an  Allied  agent  here.  And  that 
as  the  United  States  would  soon  be  at  war  with  Grer- 
many,  anyhow,  it  was  your  patriotic  duty  to  help.  And 
since  it  also  meant  you  could  marry  the  girl '* 


48  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

"But  I  assure  you,  sir,  the  personal  part  alone  would 
never  have  been  enough,"  said  Petersham  earnestly. 
"And  it  was  so  small  a  detail — or  seemed  to  be.  Well, 
I  made  Hilda  promise  that  the  invention  should  be 
offered  to  the  United  States  also,  and  that  the  Allies 
must  share  it  with  us.  She  swore  to  do  so,  and  so  did 
her  father.  And  so  I  gave  them  a  tracing.  That  is 
all,"  he  finished  wearily,  "The  very  next  day  they 
tried  to  arrest  me,  and  the  admiral  wouldn't  listen  to 
me,  and  I  went  wild  with  rage  at  the  whole 
world " 

"What  happened  after  you  escaped?" 

The  boy's  face  lit  up,  although  wanly.  "Yes,  of 
course,"  he  said.  Then,  as  he  gathered  his  thoughts, 
his  natural,  youthful  enthusiasm  reasserted  itself.  "It 
may  not  be  such  a  bad  thing,  after  all — that  is  for 
the  United  States — although  I'm  finished,  done  for, 
look  at  it  any  way  you  like.  But  I'll  have  my  revenge 
on  them,  the  cowardly,  sneaking  rascals,  to  get  at  a 
man  through  a  girl,  and  through  his  hating  the  cruel 
way  they  made  war  themselves — and — well,  through 
everything  that  was  decent." 

He  brooded  a  moment.  "You  know,  sometimes, 
Mr.  Norroy,  considering  everything,  I  don't  believe  it 
was  that  tracing  I  gave  them  half  as  much  as  it  was 
me  they  were  after.  I've  had  two  weeks  to  think 
everything  over  in,  and,  stop  to  think  of  it,  that  trac- 
ing wasn't  so  very  valuable.  Almost  any  good  naval 
constructor  could  have  figured  it  out  In  time.  Every 
nation  has  got  to  figure  it  out.  Why,  I  myself  made 
some  slight  suggestions  that  the  constructor  embodied 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE   BETRAYERS  49 

in  the  idea,  and  I'm  not  even  a  naval  constructor  yet, 
I  would  have  been  if  it  hadn't  been  for  this,  but  that's 
all  over.  No,  it  wasn't  that  problem  of  compactness 
they  wanted  half  as  much  as  they  wanted  me." 

"It  would  look  that  way,  since  they  mailed  the 
original  tracing,  knowing  all  the  time  their  house  was 
watched,"  agreed  Norroy.  "If  they  didn't  know,  why 
did  they  decamp  that  very  night — why  did  they 
arrange  for  that  escape  of  yours?  It  looks  as  if  they 
wanted  first  to  discredit  you,  then  to  use  you." 

"That  was  just  it,"  answered  the  boy  gloomily. 
"You  see,  I  was  the  constructor's  own  private  drafts- 
man, almost  like  a  girl  there  was  his  private  secretary. 
I  knew  every  plan  for  every  new  thing  that  has  come 
up  in  the  past  year,  and  most  of  the  new  things  have 
come  up  in  that  time  in  the  way  of  naval  warfare — 
and  almost  every  new  thing  had  to  pass  through  the 
construction  and  repair  department  of  the  New  York 
navy  yard.  Look  at  the  stuflF  I  could  have  given  them ! 
And  how  I  could  have  checked  up  on  all  the  other 
StuflF  they  managed  to  get.  They  knew  my  record,  just 
as  they  seem  to  know  everything,  and  they  knew 
mighty  few  young  draftsmen  get  recommended  for 
naval-constructor  exams,  after  a  year's  service.  But 
what's  the  good  of  talking  about  what's  past!"' 

He  made  a  little  despairing  gesture. 

"Lots  of  use,"  answered  Norroy.  "You  help  me 
and  I'll  help  you.  M^r  job  is  to  get  the  men  at  the 
head  of  the  infernal  system  that  tried  to  ruin  you. 
And  I'm  going  to  stay  on  the  job  until  I  do." 

Norroy  stood,  arms  folded,  watching  the  boy  keenly. 


50  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

Also  he  glanced  toward  the  slightly  open  door.  Peter- 
sham did  not  notice.  He  was  too  much  occupied  by 
a  thought  that,  to  judge  from  the  sudden  light  in  his 
eyes,  was  a  pleasant  one. 

"Count  on  me  to  help  you,"  he  said  quickly.  "And 
I  can  help  you.  Although  they  blindfolded  me  before 
they  took  me  to  the  house  I'm  going  to  tell  you  about, 
they  were  foolish  enough  to  leave  one  of  the  window 
blinds  up,  and  the  one  glance  I  got  gave  me  my  bear- 
ings.    Look  here " 

Taking  a  pencil  from  his  pocket,  he  ran  across  to 
the  writing  table,  and,  under  the  shaded  light,  began 
to  draw  on  a  piece  of  Norroy's  crested  paper. 

"Here's  Central  Park,"  he  said,  and  began  drawing 
the  north  side  of  it  and  the  great  avenues  that  met 
it.  His  pencil  traced  the  course  of  two  of  these 
fartlier  northward.    Then  he  blocked  in  a  little  square. 

"I  forget  the  name  of  this  place,"  he  said  as  he 
sketched,  "but  I've  seen  it  often,  been  in  it  often, 
because  I  lived  north  of  the  park  when  I  was  a  kid, 
and  used  to  take  a  short  cut  to  school  through  this 
very  same  little  square.  The  house  we  want  is  on  the 
north  side,  and  is  somewhere  in  the  center  of  the 
block.  It  isn't  an  apartment  house,  and  it  must  be  a 
double  front,  because  there  were  doors  on  both  sides 
of  the  hallway.  It  seems  to  me  that  it  must  be  easy 
to  locate  a  house  like  that." 

He  handed  the  drawing  to  Norroy.  "What  hap- 
pened?" asked  the  recipient. 

"They  took  me  there  by  some  roundabout  route.  I 
think  it  was  through  Jamaica  and  back  to  New  York 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  BETRAYERS  51 

over  the  Queensborough  Bridge.  They  stopped  some- 
where on  the  road — they  bound  my  eyes  then  so  I 
wouldn't  see  where — and  exchanged  their  roadster  for 
a  limousine,  and  got  me  a  piffling  disguise.  They  never 
took  the  bandage  from  my  eyes  until  we  were  inside 
this  house  on  this  square  I'm  telling  you  about.  Then 
the  man  who  unbandaged  me — the  one  who  had  ridden 
the  horse  I  got  away  on " 

"What  sort  of  a  looking  man?"  asked  Norroy. 

The  boy  told  him.  Norroy  nodded,  and  told  him  to 
goon. 

"This  man  told  me  not  to  be  afraid;  that  I  was 
among  friends  who  knew  how  to  reward  their  friends. 
He  left  me  with  the  others,  and  went  upstairs.  Pretty 
soon  I  was  sent  for. 

"In  a  big  room  on  the  top  floor — in  fact,  it  looked 
like  the  only  room — there  was  a  man  sitting  at  a 
desk.  One  look  at  him  frightened  me  stiff.  And  I'm 
not  easily  frightened,  either.  He  was  writing,  and 
he  told  me  to  wait.  I  looked  around  the  room.  Its 
walls  were  just  lined  with  file  boxes,  and  a  big  safe 
near  the  desk,  where  the  man  was  writing,  was  open, 
showing  rows  and  rows  of  iron  compartments  stuffed 
with  paper,  and  a  half-open  drawer  with  piled-up 
rouleaux  of  gold  and  packages  of  bank  notes  in  neat 
piles. 

"I  don't  know  what  it  was  frightened  me  about 
this  man.  I  guess  it  was  the  look  he  shot  at  me  when 
I  came  in;  for  when  he  bent  over  his  writing  all  I 
could  see  was  brown  hair  and  a  brown  beard  cut  to  a 
point.     And  when  he  looked  up  and  smiled  at  me 


52  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

he  had  two  rows  of  nice  white  teeth.  This  time  his 
eyes  did  not  seem  so  terrible. 

"Well,  he  sat  there,  telling  me  about  how  his  coun- 
try would  protect  me,  since  I  had  helped  her — that 
she  never  forgot  her  friends.  He  went  on  to  say  they 
had  the  greatest  surgeons  in  the  world  in  Germany, 
and  that  my  face  could  be  so  altered  by  them — with- 
out pain — that  when  I  grew  a  mustache  and  beard  I 
could  come  back  to  America  and  they'd  have  an 
identity  for  me  to  assume.  And  so  forth  and  so  forth, 
I  was  to  have  all  the  money  I  wanted,  and " 

The  boy  paused  and  drew  a  deep  breath. 

"Just  at  that  moment  he  pressed  a  bell  button,  the 
door  flew  open,  and  there  stood — Hilda! 

"  'I  had  to  do  it,'  she  said,  'but  that  part  about 
caring  for  you  wasn't  pretending.' 

"  'What  must  I  do  in  return  for  all  this  ?*  I  asked 
the  brown-bearded  man  at  the  desk.  Although 
whether  that  beard  and  mustache  were  real,  I  couldn't 
say. 

"  'First  you  write  your  name  in  this  book,'  he  an- 
swered, and  he  unlocked  the  strong  box  of  the  safe 
and  took  out  a  big,  black  book.  'There  are  plenty  of 
your  fellow  countrymen  there,'  he  added ;  'take  a  look 
if  you  don't  believe  me.' 

"I  did.  And,  Mr.  Norroy,  that  book  is  full  of  the 
names  and  addresses  of  people  right  here  in  New 
York,  in  Chicago — even  more  in  Chicago — in  Balti- 
more, San  Francisco — every  city  in  the  union. 

"  'And  after  I  sign  my  name,  what  ?'  I  asked  him. 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  BETRAYERS  53 

"  'Why,  then,'  he  answered,  smiHng  in  a  funny  way, 
'you  just  do  as  you're  told,  that's  all.' 

"Hilda  had  come  up  behind  me,  and  caught  hold 
of  my  hand.  I  don't  know  what  gave  me  the  courage 
to  refuse — I  love  Hilda,  and,  oh,  how  I  wanted  her! 
— but  I  did  refuse,  and  then  the  man's  anger  was 
something  terrible.  Not  that  he  showed  anything,  but 
his  eyes  just  blazed,    I  felt  like  I  was  shriveling  up. 

"He  told  Hilda  to  get  out  as  if  she  were  some  stray 
dog,  and  she  went  without  a  word.  Then  the  man  he 
rang  for  came  in — the  one  who  had  brought  me  up — 
and  the  big  man  at  the  desk  said:  'Take  him  where 
he'll  be  glad  to  come  to  his  senses.' 

"They  blindfolded  me  and  took  me  to  that  place  in 
Jersey — away  out  in  the  woods  somewhere;  I  could 
never  find  tJtat  again.  I've  been  there  ever  since  until 
to-night.  I'd  gone  to  bed  early,  and  was  fast  asleep 
in  a  room  with  barred  windows  at  the  top  of  the  house 
when  somebody  came  ringing  and  knocking  at  the 
front  door. 

"I  lay  still,  as  if  I  was  still  asleep,  and  that  was  how 
I  came  to  hear  what  they  planned  to  do  with  you, 
for  the  man  in  charge — the  same  one — came  upstairs 
and  came  over  and  listened  to  my  breathing  and  said 
to  the  man  watching  me:  *He's  all  right.  Come  on 
down.     Messenger  from  New  York.' 

"After  they'd  gone  downstairs  to  the  dining  room, 
I  crept  down  after  them,  and,  halfway  up  on  the  stairs, 
I  heard  all  about  the  advertisement  and  everything. 
The  big  man  in  New  York  had  sent  you  the  note,  Mr. 
Norroy,  and  had  prepared  the  place  and  had  a  boat 


54  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

waiting  outside  a  secret  tunnel  under  the  house  that 
they  were  to  escape  by  in  case  you  came  with  anybody 
else.  But  since  he — the  man  in  charge  over  in  Jersey 
— had  begun  this  thing,  the  messenger  said,  he  could 
finish  it. 

"They  began  to  draw  lots  to  see  who  was  to  stay 
and  watch  me,  and  I  hurried  back  upstairs  and  got 
into  bed  again.  After  the  others  went,  well" — the 
boy  shuddered  again — 'T  told  you  how  we  struggled — 
and  what  happened " 

Petersham  closed  his  eyes  as  if  to  keep  out  the  sight 
that  rose  before  them.  Then  he  took  an  automatic 
from  his  pocket  and  pushed  it  away,  his  look  of  horror 
returning.  Norroy  clapped  his  shoulder,  then  put  an 
arm  about  him, 

"You  played  your  part  like  a  man,  after  that  initial 
foolishness,"  said  the  secret  agent.  "And  if  you'll 
help  me  I'll  guarantee  you'll  be  glad  this  happened. 
But,  first,  your  mother " 

"She  died  in  the  hospital;  died  without  recovering 
consciousness  after  the  operation,"  said  the  boy,  his 
tones  broken.  His  eyes  suddenly  brimmed  over.  "I 
had  such  dreams,"  he  sobbed.  "Now — everything's 
gone — everything  I  loved — gone!** 

"Except  your  country,"  Norroy  reminded  him 
gently.  "You  love  your  country,  don't  you,  Peter- 
sham? You  realize  the  menace  of  the  system  that 
nearly  made  you  a  traitor?  You  know  that,  sooner 
or  later,  war  must  come,  and  first  we  must  root  out 
this  treason  with  which  the  country  is  honeycombed. 
The  first  step  toward  that  end  is  to  get  that  Black 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  BETRAYERS  55 

Book.  That  will  tell  us  who  the  traitors  are.  Think 
what  It  would  mean  if  it  was  through  you  that  book 
came  into  our  hands — the  honor,  the " 

*T  don't  care  anything  about  that  now,"  answered 
the  boy,  looking  up,  suddenly  stern.  "But,  as  you  say, 
I've  only  got  my  country  now.  So  I'll  do  whatever 
you  say." 

"Right !"  agreed  Norroy  cheerfully.  "We'll  have  a 
drink  on  that.  Oh,  by  the  way,  Carson,  you  can  come 
out  now.  Come  out  and  meet  the  newest  member  of 
the  corps — Mr.  Charles  Petersham." 

And  Carson  Huntley,  pocketing  his  automatic  with 
which  he  had  been  keeping  guard  behind  the  slightly 
open  door,  came  into  the  firelight  in  time  to  drink  the 
toast: 

"Until  the  Black  Book  is  In  our  hands,"  said  Nor- 
roy, and  all  three  clinked  their  glasses. 


BOOK  TWO 
AN  ENEMY  TO  THE  EMPEROR 


CHAPTER  I 

In  Which  Ulric  Ulm  Becomes  Ulrich  von  Uhlm 

Again 

UP  to  the  age  of  twenty-three,  that  young  gentle- 
gan  who  had  been  bom  Von  Uhlm  and  chris- 
tened Ulrich,  had  suspected  himself  to  be  a 
square  peg  in  a  world  of  round  holes. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  winter  of  191 6  he  would 
have  sworn  that  he  was  of  all  pegs  the  squarest,  and 
that  all  of  the  world's  holes  were  of  the  roundest 
So  much  was  this  issue  the  case  that  our  young  gen- 
tleman found  himself  in  the  lamentable  necessity  of 
wearing  a  trail  between  his  lodging  house  and  the 
nearest  pawnbroker's — a  trail  that,  had  it  not  been  dis- 
turbed by  those  of  others  in  that  overpopulated  dis- 
trict, would  have  been  big  and  broad  enough  for  an 
Indian  papoose  to  follow. 

On  a  certain  night  in  December,  when  Ulric — ^he 
had  elided  the  aspirate,  as  you  will  hear — had  returned 
from  the  temporarily  avuncular  relatives  for  the  last 
time — for  he  had  now  nothing  more  to  pawn — ^he  dis- 
covered that  the  room  across  the  hall  from  him  had 
acquired  a  habitant,  which  was  the  last  and  cruelest 
hind  kick  of  fate.     This  room  was  the  best  in  the 

59 


6o  THE  pLACK  BOOK 

house.  It  overlooked  the  little  square  outside  and 
was  furthermore  provided  with  a  huge  fireplace.  Here 
Ulric,  whose  hall  room  was  the  smallest  and  the  cold- 
est, had  been  permitted  squatter's  sovereignty  during 
the  room's  lack  of  more  profitable  occupancy.  For 
Ulric  was  what  the  landlady  called  "handsome,  poor 
boy,"  and  she  was  somewhat  sorely  smitten  of  con- 
science concerning  him,  for  his  hall  room,  having  once 
been  a  linen  room,  was  unprovided  with  heat  of  any 
sort,  nor  was  there  any  way  of  heating  it. 

So  Ulric  had  been  permitted  to  draw  his  table  close 
to  the  window  overlooking  the  square;  or,  on  more 
inclement  days,  close  to  the  wood  fire  which  his  purse 
had  as  yet  never  been  too  slender  to  afford.  For  Ulric 
was  a  dreamer,  who  had  yet  to  make  his  dreams,  when 
put  on  paper,  pay  for  sleeping  place  and  provender; 
and  wood  fires  that  crackled  and  sputtered  or  gleamed 
and  glowed  were  mighty  encouragers  of  dreams;  and 
deep  down  in  the  glowing,  red  heart  of  the  fire  he  had 
always  been  able  to  see  his  dreams  come  true. 

But  it  seemed  the  fire  had  lied.  For,  shorn  of  his 
last  pawnable  object,  and  now  having  no  place  in 
which  he  could  write  down  his  dreams  in  the  hope  that 
some  editor  some  da)*  would  see  in  him  a  future  Balzac 
or  De  Maupassant,  how  could  he  be  expected  to  suc- 
ceed?   Or  even  to  live? 

Ulric  gazed  sadly  at  the  stranger  who  was  about  to 
enter  the  room,  tlien  approached  him,  hat  in  hand. 

"There  are  a  few  manuscripts  of  mine  in  a  drawer 
of  the  desk  in  there,"  he  said  gloomily.  "If  you  will 
permit  me,  I  will  remove  them." 


AN  ENEMY  TO  THE  EMPEROR  6i 

The  stranger  looked  shabby  enough,  shabbier  in- 
deed than  Ulric,  but  extremely  clean  and  neat.  His 
stare,  suddenly  shifted  to  the  youth,  caused  Ulric  first 
to  stammer,  then  to  look  away,  for  it  was  a  peculiarly 
disquieting  stare.  In  the  single  second  when  the  owner 
so  silently  scrutinized  him,  our  young  gentleman  felt 
as  if  he  were  naked,  and  that  the  stranger  had  sud- 
denly become  aware  of  every  discreditable  thing  in  his 
past.  Not  that  there  was,  strictly  speaking,  any  such. 
But  Ulric  felt  as  though  there  were.  Ulric  even  felt 
that  the  stranger  was  suspicious  of  what  he  said,  and 
might  think  this  was  but  an  excuse  to  gain  admittance 
to  his  room  for  some  sinister  reason. 

Such  was  the  effect  of  the  stranger's  stare  that 
Ulric  felt  like  an  alien  in  an  enemy  land  who  hastens 
to  unearth  his  passport. 

"My  name,"  he  said,  almost  timidly,  "is  Ulric  Ulm. 
This  little  room  is  mine,  but  the  landlady  lets  me 
write  in  there — in  your  room.  I  am  a  writer,  you 
see.    That  was,  so  to  speak,  my  office." 

He  smiled  wanly  over  what  had  seemed  an  excellent 
jest  when  permission  to  use  the  room  had  first  been 
granted.  But  he  took  heart  when  he  saw  that  the 
stranger  was  observing  him  favorably.  In  fact,  Ulric 
felt  that  the  stranger  had  an  unaccountable  desire  to 
know  him  better. 

"Your  name  is " 

Ulric  repeated  three  of  the  four  syllables.  "Ulric 
Ulm,"  he  said. 

"German?" 

Ulric  indignantly  denied  it.  ^ 


.63  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

"I'm  an  American,"  he  said. 

"German  descent,  though,  aren't  you?" 

"Not  in  the  sense  you  mean.  Not  Prussian.  My 
people  come  from  Saxony,  and  my  grandfather  was 
one  of  those  who  rebelled  against  the  Prussianizing 
of  Germany  way  back  in  1848.  He  was  a  friend  of 
Carl  Schurz  and  Franz  Sigel  and  Rosecrans — all  that 
bunch  hated  Prussia  as  bad  as  the  Belgians  do 
to-day " 

He  stopped  short  suddenly.  "God  knows  why  I'm 
running  on  like  this  about  my  family,"  he  said,  with 
the  same  wan  smile  as  before.  "But  the  word  'Ger- 
man' means  such  a  hateful  thing  to-day  that  I  want 
to  disown  it.  My  father  and  his  people — the  people 
of  his  day  in  Saxony — were  not  Germans;  not  in  the 
sense  it  is  used  to-day.  No,  and  they  were  not  social- 
ists— in  the  sense  it  is  used  to-day,  either.  I  was  a 
socialist  until  the  German  socialists  went  back  on 
everything  they  were  pledged  to  do.  After  this  war, 
maybe  I'll  be  a  socialist  again — a  real  socialist.  But 
we  won't  call  ourselves  'socialists.'  The  name  will  be 
too  soiled  after  the  uses  to  which  it's  been  put.  Of 
course  I'm  very  young  and  maybe  I've  no  right  to 
judge " 

Again  he  checked  himself,  and  this  time  he  blushed. 
He  did  not  need  tell  anybody  he  was  very  young. 

"There  I  go — running  on  again,"  he  faltered,  "I'll 
— I'll  just  get  those  manuscripts,  if  you  don't 
mind " 

The  stranger  opened  the  door  and  motioned  Ulric 
inside.    The  youth  made  toward  the  desk,  and,  ask- 


AN  ENEMY  TO  THE  EMPEROR  63 

ing  permission,  opened  a  drawer  and  took  out  two 
folded  manuscripts. 

"I  guess  I'd  better  have  left  them,"  he  said  bitterly. 
**They'd  save  me  something  in  stamps  if  they  were 
lost." 

The  stranger  held  out  his  hand  for  them.  With  the 
eagerness  of  the  young  writer  to  have  his  work  read, 
Ulric  obeyed. 

"If  you'd  like  to  look  them  over  and  tell  me  what 
you  think  of  them " 

"Typewritten,  eh?"  interrupted  the  stranger,  and 
looked  around  the  room  as  if  in  search  of  something. 
Ulric  shook  his  head. 

"They  came  and  took  the  typewriter  because  I  owed 
two  months'  rent,"  he  admitted  frankly, 

"Sit  down,  won't  you?"  asked  the  other.  "I'd  like 
to  look  over  these.  And,  by  the  way,  will  you  have 
dinner  with  me?  I  understand  from  the  good  lady 
here  that  one  can  have  all  sorts  of  things  served  in 
one's  room." 

Ulric  eagerly  acquiesced.  He  was  very  hungry — ^he 
was  always  very  hungry  nowadays — and  the  landlady 
never  failed  to  have  a  joint  of  some  sort  every  even- 
ing— a  joint  in  the  good  old  English  fashion,  with 
plenty  of  gravy  and  roast  potatoes.  He  told  the 
stranger  so,  his  mouth  watering  and  his  eyes  moist 
with  hunger.  For  his  purse  had  not  run  to  the  pur- 
chase of  such  fare  for  many  a  day. 

"And  she  has  rolypoly  pudding  to-night,"  he  added, 
as  if  this  must  clinch  his  host's  intention  of  eating 
indoors.    "It's  a  breath  of  good  old  London,  one  of 


64  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

those  dinners  of  hers.  Everybody  eats  here  who  can 
afford  it  I  used  to." 
.  "Well,  suppose  you  run  downstairs  and  order  dinner 
for  two,"  suggested  this  amazing  stranger.  "Mean- 
while, I'll  look  over  these.  I  may  be  able  to  help  you 
get  them  published " 

But  when  the  delighted  youth  had  gone,  the  stranger 
went  about  his  examination  of  the  manuscripts  in  a 
most  peculiar  way,  turning  over  each  page  entirely  too 
rapidly  to  read  more  than  a  few  words  of  each. 

"Very  excellent  typewriting,"  he  murmured.  But 
then,  despite  his  hasty  survey  of  the  pages,  a  phrase 
caught  and  held  him.  He  read  on — a  sentence,  a 
paragraph.    Then  he  looked  up. 

"God  is  certainly  good,"  so  ran  his  thoughts.  "The 
boy  has  a  German  name  and  hates  Germany.  If  I 
doubted  his  words,  this  story  is  enough  to  prove  it." 

For  the  story  in  question  was  a  war  story,  shock- 
ingly inaccurate  as  to  its  descriptions  of  things  mili- 
tary, also  of  the  topography  of  its  locale,  Belgium,  and 
the  nature  and  the  appearance  of  its  inhabitants — both 
incredibly  idealized.  But  it  so  breathed  a  certain  pas- 
sionate hatred  for  the  wrongs  done  that  unhappy  coun- 
try and  her  people  that  passages  in  it  were  uplifted 
beyond  writing  in  ordinary;  showed,  in  fact,  that  the 
writer  thereof  had  both  the  soul  of  a  poet  and  an 
intermittent  ability  to  express  himself  accordingly. 

The  stranger  looked  up  again.  "A  German  and 
hates  Germany.  A  socialist  and  has  renounced  social- 
ism. Has  a  German  name.  Can  typewrite  and  use 
good  English.    It  looks  as  though  accident  had  thrown 


AN  ENEMY  TO  THE  EMPEROR  65 

in  your  way  a  better  tool  than  you  could  forge,  Yorke 
Norroy," 

Again  one  interprets  the  stranger's  thoughts  as  he 
stared  upward  at  the  old,  frescoed  ceiling  of  a  house 
of  yesteryear.  To  those  familiar  with  the  Yorke  Nor- 
roy of  the  clubs  and  the  cotillions,  there  was  little  in 
this  stranger  to  give  him  the  right  to  think  of  him- 
self by  that  name.  But  to  one  of  his  particular  co- 
workers and  cronies  of  the  St.  Anthony  Club,  accus- 
tomed to  the  knowledge  that  Mr.  Norroy  was  oftener 
in  disguise  than  out  of  it,  his  identification  would  have 
been  easy;  for  Norroy  had  made  less  attempt  to  alter 
his  person  than  his  class.  The  wig  he  wore  gave  him 
the  sort  of  unfashionable  hair  cut  seen  on  small  work- 
men; his  clothes  were  of  a  clumsy,  woodenish  cut  that 
made  their  wearer  seem  a  foreigner  of  the  lower  mid- 
dle class;  and  his  "madeup"  bow  of  a  necktie  assisted 
in  this  impression,  as  did  his  thickish,  ragged  mustache 
and  scrap  of  shapeless  beard.  These  latter  details  de- 
stroyed that  clean-cut  look  of  his  that  seemed  to  show 
each  feature  sharply  etched,  just  as  the  baggy  gar- 
ments disguised  the  slenderness  and  grace  of  his  figure; 
while  the  application  of  one  of  his  own  preparations 
for  the  face  gave  his  complexion  that  muddiness  which 
comes  from  improper  food  and  not  too  much  of  that. 

So  that  when  he  let  his  eyelids  droop  over  his  too- 
expressive  eyes — as  he  did  not  do  in  the  case  of 
Ulric  Ulm — there  was  little  of  the  old  Yorke  Norroy 
for  any  one  save  perhaps  Carson  Htmtley  and  one  or 
two  others  extremely  intimate  to  identify. 

A  light  went  up  in  the  house  opposite,  and  Norroy 


66  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

abandoned  his  efforts  in  literary  encouragement  to 
close  the  inner  shutters  of  his  room,  being  careful, 
however,  not  to  lower  the  curtain.  From  between  the 
shutter  and  window  frame  he  observed  that  the  light 
opposite  emanated  from  the  third-floor  window.  He 
leaned  back,  and,  turning  down  the  wick  of  his  stu- 
dent's lamp,  blew  out  the  light,  leaving  the  room  in 
the  firelight.  Hence,  from  his  darkness,  he  could 
observe  something  of  the  appearance  of  the  third- 
floor  room  across  the  street;  for  he  had  taken  a  pair 
of  night  glasses  from  his  pocket  and  was  rapidly  ad- 
justing them. 

The  curtains  were  not  entirely  drawn  on  the  room 
under  observation,  and,  as  Norroy's  room  was  on  a 
somewhat  lower  level,  he  could  look  up  and  under 
the  half-drawn  shades.  But  the  room  being  lighted 
only  by  a  desk  lamp  of  some  sort,  the  space  to  the 
right  and  left  of  the  desk  were  in  shadow.  Still  Nor- 
roy  could  make  out  shelves  of  some  sort  on  the  walls 
next  to  each  window,  and  he  fancied  he  could  see  those 
shelves  covered  by  file  boxes.  But  whether  this  was 
because  he  had  been  informed  that  the  shelves  of  the 
room  he  was  seeking  were  so  covered,  he  could  not  be 
sure. 

The  man  at  the  desk  was  no  easier  identified.  That 
he  must  be  of  considerable  bulk  was  manifest,  for  his 
shadow  blocked  out  much  of  the  light  on  either  side; 
indeed,  it  almost  hid  the  desk  entirely.  So,  while  he 
sat  with  his  back  to  the  window,  there  was  no  more 
information  to  be  gained  concerning  him. 

Now  a  shadow  fell  across  the  lighted  space  remain- 


AN  ENEMY  TO  THE  EMPEROR  67 

ing  to  the  left,  and  another  figure  was  to  be  observed 
in  approach.  But  before  he  had  come  nearer,  the 
man  at  the  desk  whirled  around  in  what  was  appar- 
ently a  revolving  chair  and  snapped  down  the  window 
blind. 

Even  in  that  brief  space,  Norroy  could  make  out  a 
bearded  face.  But  while  watching  that  window  so 
intently  he  momentarily  overlooked  the  other,  and 
when  he  turned  his  eyes  to  rectify  this  he  saw  only 
a  faint  illumination  percolating  through  an  opaque 
curtain.  Even  this  was  soon  denied  him.  Heavy  por- 
tieres, or  inner  shutters  like  his  own,  interposed  to 
shut  off  further  display  of  light. 

So  that  when  Ulric  Ulm  returned,  he  found  Norroy 
in  profound  meditation  over  his  manuscripts.  Fear- 
ing lest  he  disturb  one  so  happily  occupied,  Ulric  sat 
down  gingerly  on  the  edge  of  a  chair,  his  state  of 
mind  being,  so  to  speak,  seated  in  the  same  precarious 
state.     Presently  Norroy  looked  up. 

"You  can  write,  my  boy,  only  why  will  you  write 
about  things  you  know  nothing  about  ?  I'll  guarantee, 
if  these  stories  dealt  with  subjects  with  which  you 
were  familiar,  that  the  editors  would  find  pleasure  in 
sending  you  checks.  But,  pardon  me,  you  know  noth- 
ing of  the  army,  less  about  modern  warfare,  and,  if 
possible,  less  yet  about  Belgium.  So  why  write  about 
such  things?" 

"Why,  sir,"  answered  the  boy  unhappily,  "they  seem 
to  be  the  only  subjects  worth  writing  about.  And  since 
I  can't  go  over  there  and  fight  for  poor  little  Belgium, 
the  next  best  thing  seemed  to  be  to  write  for  her.     I 


68  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

tried  to  get  taken  on  as  a  soldier  to  be  sent  across; 
I  even  went  up  to  Canada  to  try  to  get  taken  on ;  but 
you  see  I  wear  eyeglasses  and  can't  do  without  them, 
and  they  wouldn't  enlist  me.  Maybe  they  might  if 
I'd  really  been  a  Canadian,  but  they  seem  to  be  sore 
on  us  Americans  up  there.  Think  we  ought  to  be  fight- 
ing Germany  ourselves.  And  so  we  ought.  So  we 
ought!    It's  a  shame  we  aren't.    Don't  you  think  so?" 

"Strange  talk  from  a  man  with  your  name,  Mr.  von 
Uhlm,"  said  Norroy,  smiling.     "Why " 

"  'Ulm,'  not  *Von  Uhlm,' "  interrupted  the  owner 
of  that  name  hotly.  "I  chopped  the  Von'  off  the  day 
I  heard  about  those  Belgian  massacres — and  worse — 
for  fear  people  would  think  I  belonged  to  such  people. 
And  I  chopped  the  'h'  from  both  'Uhlm*  and  'Ulrich* 
and  made  it  'Ulric' — Ulric  Ulm,  that's  all.  Anyhow, 
even  though  I  still  maintain  that  the  Saxons  like  my 
grandfather  and  the  kind  of  people  he  knew — the 
southern  Germans — aren't  a  bit  like  these  Prussians, 
and  though  I'm  proud  to  have  had  a  grandfather  like 
mine  and  proud  of  lots  of  other  Saxon  ancestors,  I'm 
really  only  one-quarter  a  Saxon,  even.  My  grandfather 
married  a  Southern  woman,  who  nursed  him  back  to 
life  in  the  period  of  the  Civil  War,  and  he  settled  down 
among  her  kin,  and  my  father  married  there,  too.  So 
I'm  more  of  a  Southerner  than  I  am  a  Saxon,  don't 
you  think?** 

Norroy  studied  him  gravely,  but  the  dinner  arriving 
at  this  instant  put  an  end  to  further  conversation.  He 
could  see  the  boy  was  half  starved,  and,  what  was 
nearly  as  bad,  wholly  starved  for  good  food  such  as 


AN  ENEMY  TO  THE  EMPEROR  69 

Mrs.  Horrocks,  the  landlady,  served.  For  she  herself 
brought  up  the  shining  platters,  which,  their  bright 
metal  covers  lifted,  revealed  rare  roast  beef  and  po- 
tatoes browned  with  the  meat,  while  one  remaining 
covered  promised  further  delectables.  To  the  tune  of 
the  foaming  of  the  English  ale  in  the  tankards,  this 
was  speedily  dispatched,  mostly  by  young  Mr.  Ulm. 
And  after  his  dessert  and  coffee,  he  leaned  back,  a  new 
man. 

"Do  you  want  to  eat  a  meal  like  that  every  night, 
and  have  a  few  coins  left  to  jingle  in  your  pocket?" 
Norroy  asked  suddenly. 

Ulric  Ulm  looked  at  him  reproachfully. 

**I  see  that  you  do.  Good!"  Norroy  reached  into 
his  pocket,  brought  out  a  roll  of  bills,  peeled  off  sev- 
eral of  a  yellow  hue,  and  handed  them  over. 

"To-morrow  or  next  day,"  he  said,  "there  will  be 
held  a  special  civil-service  examination  for  typewriting 
clerk.  You  will  receive  notice  of  it.  I  want  you  to 
take  that  examination  and  pass  it,  and  I  will  guarantee 
your  appointment.  Once  you  are  appointed,  we  will 
see  if  all  these  fine  sentiments  you've  been  expressing 
bear  any  fruit.  But,  mind  you,  no  disguising  of  your 
name.  Write  it  out  fully,  Ulrich  von  Uhlm,  and  state 
you  are  of  German  American  parentage,  although 
born  here  and  an  American  citizen.    Understand  ?" 

Ulm  nodded  blankly.  "But  I  don't  want  any  one  to 
think  I'm  a  German — in  the  sense  of — well,  you 
know." 

"Don't  you?"  said  Norroy  sharply.    "Well,  /  do." 


70  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

Ulm's  blank  look  gradually  disappeared.  His  eyes 
became  speculative. 

"Special  civil-service  examination — you  guarantee 
an  appointment — fine  sentiments  bear  fine  fruit ** 

His  eyes  suddenly  lit  up. 

"You  don't  mean  that  you — that  I've  been  so  for- 
tunate as  to " 

"You  know  all  you  need  to  know  until  after  you've 
taken  that  examination  and  been  appointed." 

"To  what?" 

"You  will  know  that  in  good  time,  too.  Now  please 
forget  that  we  have  ever  talked  on  any  such  subject. 
If  any  one  asks  about  me,  I'm  a  printer  out  of  a  job — 
a  sort  of  a  German,  but  an  American  citizen  like 
yourself,  named  Brinkerhof — Henry  Brinkerhof — a 
southern  German,  too,  not  in  sympathy  with  Prus- 
sianism." 

Doubt  crept  Into  the  boy's  eyes.  "But  you  aren't?" 
he  asked.  And  as  Norroy  failed  to  answer,  the  doubt 
became  almost  a  menace:  "Mind  you,  I  meant  what 
I  said.  If  you've  got  anything  to  do  with  these  Ger- 
man propagandists  over  here,  count  me  out  I've  been 
approached  by  them  before,  especially  when  they  knew 
I  was  a  socialist." 

"But  you  haven't  declared  yourself?"  asked  Norroy 
quickly.  "Lord !  Don't  tell  me  you've  gone  on  record 
with  any  of  the  things  you've  said  to  me " 

"No,  I  haven't,"  Ulm  answered  reluctantly,  "be- 
cause they  were  older  men  than  myself,  and  most  of 
them  belonged  to  a  German  singing  society  of  which 
my  granddad  was  leader.     So  I  had  to  decline  re- 


AN  ENEMY  TO  THE  EMPEROR  71 

spect fully.  You  see,  I  only  left  my  home  down  South 
to  go  north  to  Canada  to  enlist,  and  when  they  refused 
me  I  came  to  New  York  to  write.  I  thought  I  could. 
They  thought  so,  too,  down  South " 

"The  only  trouble  is,  you've  had  nothing  to  write 
about,"  interposed  Norroy,  smiling.  "Well,  young- 
ster, I'll  guarantee  that  won't  be  the  case  if  you  fol- 
low my  instructions  and  don't  ask  questions.  And 
don't  answer  any,  either,"  he  added,  rising  and  hold- 
ing out  his  hand.  "I  will  see  you  after  the  examina- 
tion, youngster,  and  until  then  go  on  using  this  room. 
Finding  you  has  altered  my  plans  somewhat." 

So  saying,  he  got  into  hat  and  coat  and  went  his 
way.  Nor  was  this  shabby  fellow,  who  used  the  ser- 
vants' entrance  to  an  apartment  building  many  blocks 
to  the  south  of  Ulric's  abode,  and  who  crossed  by  a 
subterranean  passage  which  ran  under  an  entire  block 
of  buildings  to  the  apartment  house  which  was  Nor- 
roy's  legal  residence,  seen  by  a  man  in  the  shadows — 
one  of  those  who  watched  night  and  day  that  they 
might  report  the  goings  and  comings  of  Yorke  Norroy 
to  that  very  man  who  had  sat  with  his  back  to  the 
window  in  the  third  story  of  the  house  opposite  that 
of  Mrs.  Horrocks,  where  Ulric  Ulm  still  sat  in  deep 
perplexity. 

But  when  Norroy  emerged,  impeccable  in  evening 
dress,  with  newly  ironed  silk  hat  and  shoes  that 
matched  it  in  the  depth  of  their  inky  gloss — as  black 
as  his  gloves  were  white — the  man  in  the  shadows 
opposite  took  up  the  trail  that  was  to  lead  nowhere 
at  all,  so  far  as  his  ends  were  concerned. 


72  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

Opportunities,  as  it  is  said,  come  to  all;  but  it  is 
only  to  the  chosen  few  that  it  is  given  to  recognize 
Opportunity  if  she  wears  even  the  flimsiest  of  veils. 
To  most  men  in  Norroy's  position,  the  meeting  with 
Ulric  Ulm  would  have  been  a  forgotten  incident  after 
the  boy's  manuscripts  had  been  retrieved ;  but  to  Yorke 
Norroy,  ever  on  the  alert  to  waylay  Opportunity,  the 
mere  fact  that  this  youth  had  a  German-sounding  name 
was  enough  for  investigation. 

With  the  result  that  his  plans  for  obtaining  the  Black 
Book  were  very  materially  altered  and  improved. 


CHAPTER  II 
Tells  !Ajbout  the  Catacombs  of  Manhattan  Isle 

IT  was  nearly  a  month  later  when  the  St.  Anthony 
Club  prepared  to  welcome  a  new  member.  Dur- 
ing this  time,  Charles  Petersham,  whose  disgrace 
by  the  hand  of  the  German  spy  system  was  almost  as 
recent  as  his  admission  into  the  corps  of  secret  agents, 
whose  meeting  place  the  St.  Anthony  Club  was,  chafed 
imder  inaction.  True,  he  had  employed  the  time 
profitably  in  learning  by  heart  the  code  system  used 
by  that  corps;  for  in  such  troublous  days  as  these 
Yorke  Norroy  had  decided  that  all  code  books  were 
to  be  destroyed  lest  they  fall  into  enemy  hands.  But 
first  he  changed  the  code,  to  insure  the  entire  useless- 
ness  of  such  books  as  remained  in  existence  despite 
his  edict;  and,  summoning  to  New  York  all  those 
subject  to  his  orders,  bade  them  give  a  week  of  their 
time  to  committing  the  new  code  to  memory. 

Kjiowing  as  he  did  that  any  code  is  decipherable 
if  code  experts  have  any  number  of  messages  in  it 
to  go  by,  he  did  not  put  too  great  a  task  on  his  sub- 
ordinates by  making  the  new  code  too  complex.  Only 
two  copies  of  the  code  were  kept  for  the  instruction  of 
agents  out  of  reach,  and  these  lay  behind  steel  and 

73 


74  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

concrete  doors  equipped  with  both  letter  and  number 
combinations,  and  further  protected  by  a  time-lock 
device.  One  safe  was  at  the  St  Anthony  Club  and 
could  be  opened  only  by  Norroy;  the  other  was  the 
innermost  of  inner  safes  in  the  State,  War,  and  Navy 
Building  and  could  be  opened  only  by  the  secretary  of 
state  himself. 

There  were  many  besides  Petersham  who  were  an- 
noyed by  the  inaction  of  that  month;  especially  with 
bombing  outrages,  "mysterious"  fires  that  destroyed 
ammunition  and  supplies  intended  for  the  Allies,  and 
ample  proof  that,  despite  the  utmost  secrecy,  the  sail- 
ing dates  of  ships  had  been  learned  somehow,  as 
well  as  their  ports  of  destination,  and  the  courses 
they  intended  to  take.  This  must  be  true,  since  all 
traces  of  many  such  ships  were  lost  before  they  could 
reasonably  be  supposed  to  be  out  of  touch  by  wireless 
— and  the  Allies  were  never  to  see  them. 

And  just  what  poison  was  at  work,  as  in  the  case 
of  Petersham,  used  with  intent  to  discover  military 
and  naval  secrets,  none  could  know — until  too  late 

Yet  Yorke  Norroy  held  his  hand.  It  was  exceed^ 
ingly  unlike  him,  Carson  Huntley  thought.  But  Hunt- 
ley alone  of  all  the  malcontents  knew  that  Norroy's 
way  was  best,  no  matter  how  obviously  wrong  it 
might  seem. 

"Let  the  department  of  justice  and  the  secret  service 
look  after  these  individual  outrages,"  Norroy  had 
explained,  at  the  beginning  of  his  inaction.  "Let  them 
follow  up  single  clews  and  get  the  individuals  sepa- 
rately responsible,  if  they  can.    And  they  are  doing  it 


AN  ENEMY  TO  THE  EMPEROR  75 

indifferently  well.  As  for  us,  when  we  strike  it  must 
be  at  the  root  of  the  system.  To  give  them  any  idea 
that  we  know  as  much  as  we  do  means  the  breaking 
up  of  their  present  system,  and  its  speedy  reor- 
ganization elsewhere.  We  want  to  strike  as  lightning 
strikes,  not  only  stripping  off  the  branches  of  the 
tree,  but  killing  its  roots  so  that  it  cannot  grow  again." 

"But  sometimes  lightning  misses  the  roots,"  ob- 
jected the  sulky  Baedeker  Bok,  the  most  unruly  of 
all  the  agitators  against  what  he  called  Norroy's 
''arrogance." 

"Not  when  the  bolt  is  aimed  at  them,"  was  Norroy's 
imperturbable  answer.  "And  that  is  what  takes  time 
— forging  and  aiming  the  bolt.  You  will  learn  all 
about  it  at  the  right  time." 

"But  haven't  we  located  this  nest  of  spies?"  asked 
Henry  Ivison  James,  familiarly  known  as  "H.  I.  J." 
James  was  an  army  officer,  as  well  as  a  secret  agent 
— officially  he  was  attached  to  a  Washington  bureau. 
But  the  card-index  system  in  use  in  the  Chief  Clerk*s 
office  recorded  him  "detached  for  special  service'* 
and  the  card  was  old  and  the  typing  faded.  Respect 
for  discipline  had  been  implanted  in  him  at  West 
Point,  fostered  during  service  in  Porto  Rico  and  the 
Philippines.  It  was  seldom  he  questioned  the  fiat  of 
his  superior  officer.  But  now  he  did.  So  Norroy 
thought  it  best  to  extend  his  explanation. 

"Not  only  have  we  located  them,  but  I  have  rented 
a  room  exactly  opposite  and  have  seen  sitting  at  his 
desk  the  very  man  Petersham  has  described  to  us  and 
who  undoubtedly  is  the  head  and  shoulders  of  the 


76  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

organization.  One  shot  from  this  little  weapon  we  all 
carry" — and  Norroy  touched  the  space  under  his  left 
arm  where  swung  by  an  arm  holster  the  long,  thin, 
rodlike  weapon,  operated  by  compressed  air  and 
shooting  long,  thin,  steel- jacketed  bullets  almost  noise- 
lessly— "and  that  would  have  been  the  end  of  Mon- 
sieur the  Spy.    But " 

"Yes "  urged  several  voices. 

"But  another  spy  would  have  speedily  taken  his 
place,  and  the  work  would  have  gone  on,"  answered 
Norroy  quietly. 

"But  an  organized  arrest — ^the  house  surrounded 
front  and  back,"  suggested  the  sulky  Baedeker  Bok. 
"If  we  let  them  alone  long  enough,  we're  liable  to  lose 
them  any  day.    If  we  surround  the  house " 

Norroy  seemed  very  busy  over  a  spot  of  ink  in  ill 
keeping  with  an  otherwise  immaculate  forefinger. 

"How  so?  Weren't  you  along  the  night  we  tried 
that  very  thing  at  Van  Vhroon  Place?  How  many 
prisoners  did  we  take?    Not  one!    Well?" 

Norroy  returned  to  the  elimination  of  the  ink  spot. 
As  he  sat  there,  absorbed  in  so  minor  a  matter,  and 
attired  in  dress  clothes  of  so  exquisite  a  cut,  with  the 
light  from  the  Barye  bronze  desk  lamp  glinting  on 
jeweled  studs  set  between  two  tiny  ruffles  in  the 
center  of  pleats  of  fine  lawn — studs  that  matched 
waistcoat  buttons  and  cuff  links  and  were  the  dernier 
cri  of  the  Rue  de  la  Paix  in  such  styles,  just  as  the 
curve  of  his  dress  waistcoat  and  coat  showed  them 
to  be  the  last  word  Cork  Street  or  Saville  Row  had 
to  say  on  such  subjects — one  would  have  been  par- 


AN  ENEMY  TO  THE  EMPEROR  77 

doned  for  believing  him  to  be  one  of  those  men  whose 
obituaries  are  chiefly  composed  of  a  Hst  of  their 
clubs;  men,  who,  although  they  attend  every  ball  and 
important  dinner  dance  of  the  season,  always  do  so 
with  a  look  of  boredom  that  says:  "Only  this  sort 
of  thing  stands  between  me  and  suicide." 

But  the  lackadaisical  airs  and  languid  manner  that 
were  a  part  of  this  pose  often  irritated  beyond  reason 
the  younger  members  of  the  corps. 

"That  Von  Vhroon  place  gave  onto  the  river,"  said 
the  still-objecting  Baedeker  Bok.     "And " 

"And  how  do  we  know  what  this  Van  Corlear  Park 
house  gives  'onto  ?' "  asked  Norroy,  who,  having 
eliminated  the  ink  spot,  had  taken  up  a  tiny  silver- 
mounted  buffer  and  was  coaxing  to  the  surface  the 
pristine  pink  of  his  almond-shaped  finger  nails.  "It 
is  true  we  have  operated  so  little  in  New  York  City 
that  hitherto  this  place  has  been  merely  a  headquarters 
for  agents  on  the  way  to  Europe  and  back  to  Wash- 
ington, so  all  of  you  have  my  forgiveness  for  knowing 
so  little  about  New  York  City.  Don't  you  realize 
that  underneath  this  island  of  Manhattan  is  probably 
the  vastest  system  of  catacombs  in  the  world?  The 
catacombs  of  Rome  and  the  Paris  of  Eugene  Sue  are 
simply  nothing  to  it.  First  there  are  the  subways  that 
run  under  the  entire  city,  with  so  many  outlets  here, 
there,  and  everywhere  that  a  map  of  them  reveals 
untold  possibilities.  When  men  are  at  work  on  the 
tracks,  do  you  suppose  they  climb  down  from  the 
stations  and  risk  falling  on  their  faces  on  the  third 
rail  ?    Look  here !" 


78  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

His  long,  thin  fingers  had  been  moving  as  swiftly 
as  white  butterflies  as  he  talked.  Now  he  spread  a 
map  on  the  desk  before  him — for  this  interview  the 
malcontents  had  sought  him  out  in  the  St.  Anthony 
Club's  "private  library"  which  was  in  reality  his 
private  office — and  the  others  crowded  around  him. 
All  but  Carson  Huntley,  who,  as  Norroy's  "left  hand/* 
had  already  seen  the  map. 

"Before  the  engineers  began  the  construction  of  the 
new  Seventh  Avenue  subway,  which  will  require 
several  more  years  to  finish,  they,  with  the  assistance 
of  the  ordnance-office  mapmakers,  made  this  interest- 
ing exhibit  in  order  to  discover  where  they  could  cut 
through  without  shaking  the  foundations  of  houses 
already  undermined  by  vaults  of  various  descriptions 
— wine  vaults,  cold-storage  vaults,  and  so  forth.  Also 
the  subterranean  arrangements  of  the  vast  blocks  of 
apartment  houses  and  hotels.  Do  you  realize  that  in. 
one  part  of  New  York,  near  Riverside  Drive,  you 
can  walk  nearly  seven  blocks  without  putting  your 
head  above  ground — and  not  in  the  subway,  either? 
This  is  because  New  York's  real  estate  is  owned  in. 
blocks.  One  of  the  vast  estates  like  the  Astors'  or 
the  Vanderbilts'  will  cover  twenty  or  thirty  blocks 
from  river  to  river  sometimes.  You  see,  when  apart- 
ment houses  and  hotels  were  erected  on  these  sites, 
more  or  less  at  the  same  time  during  New  York's  first 
big  spurt  of  building  such  places,  it  was  found  most 
expedient,  since  so  many  water  pipes  and  gas  pipes 
must  run  to  the  same  central  meters,  to  lay  these  pipes 
in  tunnels  that  were  easily  reached  from  the  cellars. 


AN  ENEMY  TO  THE  EMPEROR  79 

rather  than  so  close  to  the  ground  that  they  could  be 
entered  by  manholes  from  the  street.  Especially  was 
this  so  in  the  case  of  hotels  and  big  apartment  houses 
where  the  freezing  of  a  central  water  pipe,  or  a  leak 
in  a  gas  main,  means  discomfiture  to  so  many." 

He  paused  to  light  one  of  his  long,  thin  cigarettes, 
the  paper  tube  of  each  stamped  with  the  Norroy 
crest  and  his  initials — another  part  of  the  pose  that 
had  become  natural,  as  had  the  use  of  the  elaborate 
cigarette  case  bearing  the  ruby-eyed  golden  double 
dragon  of  the  Chinese  royal  family,  a  gift  bestowed 
when  the  dowager  empress  still  ruled  her  four  hun- 
dred millions  of  Chinese. 

The  others  were  looking  in  amazement  at  the  in- 
terminable number  of  interlacing  red  lines  that  ran 
underneath  each  thick  black  line  that  represented  a 
public  highway. 

"And  this  tangle  here?"  asked  Ivison  James,  point- 
ing to  the  lower  part  of  the  map. 

"Oh,  that's  all  that  remains  of  old  New  York. 
They  began  to  dig  some  of  those  cellars  when  our 
ill-smelling  Bowery  was  the  sweet-scented  Bouwerie — 
in  other  words,  when  Walter  the  Doubter  and  Peter 
Stuyvesant  were  the  high  mightinesses  of  the  East 
India  Company  and  ruled  the  Dutch  over  here  who 
were  in  constant  terror  of  Indian  attacks  and  dug 
•deep  cellars  to  keep  their  valuables  in  and  as  hiding 
places  for  the  women  and  children.  They  were  dug 
deeper  during  Revolutionary  days,  when  Continental 
spies  had  to  be  kept  and  fed  during  British  occupa- 
tion of  the  city.    And  since  a  great  proportion  of  the 


«o  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

wealth  of  the  world  centers  around  Wall  Street  and 
Maiden  Lane,  these  old  cellars  have  been  converted 
into  extensive  vaults — strong  rooms — for  valuables. 
Believe  me,  a  very  neat  brochure  could  be  written 
about  the  subterranean  regions  of  New  York,  my 
boys.  Why,  the  very  apartment  house  in  which  I 
live  has  a  subcellar  that  zig-zags  its  way  under  two 
other  buildings,  both  owned  by  the  same  estate,  and 
comes  out  on  the  street  to  the  north  of  it,  where 
another  apartment  entrance  is  located — all  this  be- 
cause both  apartment  houses  and  both  office  buildings 
are  heated  by  the  same  great  furnaces  and  it  is  a 
cheaper  and  better  way  to  heat  the  buildings.  In  fact, 
I  made  sure  of  this  before  I  took  the  apartment  when 
I  found  that  I  must  be  in  New  York  long  enough  to 
warrant  a  residence  here.  How  did  you  suppose,  with 
so  many  people  anxious  to  follow  my  footsteps,  that 
I  managed  to  elude  observation?" 

All  of  which  was  a  very  long  speech  for  Yorke 
Norroy,  and  seemed  longer,  for  it  was  delivered  in 
his  most  deliberate,  most  provokingly  languid  fashion. 

"Look!"  he  said,  and  touched  a  certain  place  on 
the  map  with  such  seeming  carelessness  that  he  seemed 
to  put  down  the  tip  of  his  finger  without  premedita- 
tion. But  it  alighted  plump  on  Van  Corlear  Square, 
and  when  he  removed  it  the  others  saw  that  this  place 
was  marked  with  a  big  interrogation  mark  in  red 
ink,  and  around  it  a  circle  of  italics  curved,  reading: 
*'01d  smugglers*  vault  suspected  to  be  here,  but  not 
found.     Immaterial  as  just  out  of  subway  line." 


AN  ENEMY  TO  THE  EMPEROR  8i 

Baedeker  Bok  read  this  aloud  and  looked  to  Norroy 
for  more  information. 

"Just  out  of  subway  line,"  said  Norroy,  emphasiz- 
ing his  adverb.  **  'Suspected  to  be  here.'  In  other 
words,  not  more  than  half  a  block  from  where  the 
new  subway  is  being  dug  are  certain  old  vaults  which, 
when  that  part  of  Manhattan  Island  was  virgin 
forest,  ran  underground  to  the  North  River  where 
'schnapps'  and  Jamaica  rum  and  French  wines  and 
so  forth  evaded  the  king's  officers  and  came  in  with- 
out payment  of  duty.  Well,  gentlemen,  you  saw,  or 
most  of  you  saw,  how  our  enemies  utilized  one  of 
these  same  smugglers'  passageways  to  escape  us  once 
before.    There  it  is  on  the  map." 

He  pointed  again  to  Van  Vhroon  Place,  where  a 
similar  note  in  red  was  found.  "Both  times  'sus- 
pected.' Why  were  they  not  found?  Because  our 
friends  the  enemy  had  disguised  the  entrances  to  the 
vatdts  very  successfully,  I  have  no  doubt.  And  now, 
Jack,  do  you  really  believe  that  if  we  surroimded  the 
house  we  should  capture  our  quarry?" 

Baedeker  Bok  did  not  meet  Norroy's  eyes,  nor  did 
he  make  reply. 

**I,  on  the  other  hand,  believe  that  they  would  scurry 
away  like  so  many  rats,  closing  the  way  behind  them, 
and  emerge — well,  wherever  they  have  planned  to 
emerge — in  some  other  house  they  have  rented,  per- 
haps in  some  house  that  is  vacant.  But  certain  it  is 
they  are  prepared  for  such  petty  emergencies  as  'sur- 
rounding the  house.'  You  talk  like  an  installment  of 
a  dime  novel,  Jack." 


83  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

He  folded  up  the  map  and  replaced  it. 

"Concerning  our  little  talk  to-night,"  he  added,  as 
if  it  were  an  afterthought,  just  before  quitting  the 
room,  "I  expect  to  have  some  real  action  before  the 
week  is  out.  Meanwhile,  busy  yourselves  with  the 
code  and  other  matters  of  immediate  moment,  because, 
once  this  affair  gets  going,  you're  going  to  have  pre- 
cious little  time  for  anything  else." 

Whereat,  as  one  who  bears  no  share  at  all  of  the 
world's  great  burden  of  care,  he  whistled  an  aria  from 
the  opera  he  was  to  hear  and  departed. 


CHAPTER  III 

How  Ulric  Ulm  Became  a  Decoy  to  Attract  ak 
Attractive  "Vampire" 

YORKE  NORROY  lived  in  one  of  those  queer 
nooks  of  the  city  where,  for  the  nonce,  one 
seems  transported  to  London.  One  entered, 
whether  afoot  or  on  wheels,  by  a  huge  archway,  on 
one  side  of  which  were  the  quarters  of  that  person 
who,  in  Paris,  would  have  been  called  a  concierge. 
On  the  other  side  was  a  sort  of  reception  room  where 
visitors  were  halted  until  the  apartment  with  which 
they  wished  to  communicate  had  been  notified. 

But  Carson  Huntley  and  his  companions  needed  ta 
go  through  no  such  formality.  They  passed  under 
the  archway  and  into  a  court  that  was  a  miniature 
London  square,  with  its  ornamental  iron  lamp-posts 
and  their  flickering  gas,  with  a  grass-grown  inclosure 
where  in  more  clement  weather  hydrangeas  scattered 
their  snowy  petals,  or  in  another  season  lilac  bushes 
made  a  sort  of  hedge  between  the  opposite  sides  of 
the  court.  There  was  one  general  entrance  for  the 
upstairs  apartments,  and  before  this  motor  cars  and 
carriages  drew  up  and  their  occupants  were  bowed  out 
by  a  brassbound  cotnmissionnaire — either  to  be  turned 

83 


84  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

back  to  the  reception  room  or  urged  on,  if  he  knew 
them,  with  a  cheery  greeting  and  a  Hft  of  his  gold- 
braided  cap. 

Thus  did  he  greet  Huntley  and  his  companions,  who 
had  dismissed  their  cab  outside.  But  they  did  not 
pass  by  him  by  the  upstairs  entrance,  but  traversed 
the  narrow  sidewalk  toward  the  most  remote  of  what 
appeared  to  be  a  number  of  small  house  fronts  but 
which  were  really  only  the  exteriors  of  the  first-floor 
apartments,  each  of  which  had  its  own  private  en- 
trance and  tiny  outside  hall.  Norroy's  was  Number 
13 — ^that  gentlemen  being  no  believer  in  bad  luck 
that  was  not  personally  manufactured. 

At  the  same  time,  Ulric  Ulm  was  making  his  way 
toward  Norroy's  apartment,  but,  in  deference  to  the 
gentleman  who  lurked  in  the  shadows  opposite  the 
archway,  he  came  by  the  more  devious  route  which 
Norroy  had  used  on  the  night  he  left  him  after  their 
first  acquaintance — ^the  underground  entry  Norroy 
had  described  to  his  other  visitors.  But,  because  the 
time  set  was  the  same  for  all,  Ulric  arrived  at  the 
rear  entrance  of  the  apartment  generally  used  by 
Norroy's  man.  Norroy  scarcely  had  time  to  acquaint 
the  others  with  the  reason  he  had  sent  for  them  when 
Valentine,  who  had  been  sent  to  wait  for  Ulm  in  the 
lobby  of  the  apartment  house  on  the  rear  street,  re- 
turned with  him. 

"You  may  set  out  cigarettes  and  cigars  and  ascer- 
tain the  gentlemen's  preference.  Better  take  long, 
cooling  drinks;  you've  got  a  long  story  to  listen  to. 
Meanwhile,  meet  the  youngster  I've  been  telling  you 


AN  ENEMY  TO  THE  EMPEROR  8^ 

about,  Ulrich  von  Uhlm,  alias  Ulric  Ulm.    He  came 
through  the  civil-service  commission  just  as  you  did, 

Bok,  and Come  to  think  of  it,  there's  a  certain 

similarity  about  the  names — an  analogous  alliteration, 
so  to  speak." 

"There  is  nothing  German  about  7ny  family,"  said 
Baedeker  Bok,  whose  tact  was  never  his  strong  point. 

Ulric  Ulm,  the  youngest  and  latest  recruit,  looked 
about  him  in  what  was  almost  an  agony  of  apprehen- 
sion. Affairs  had  progressed  somewhat  too  swiftly 
for  him  to  understand  since  his  first  meeting  with 
Norroy.  That  fact  was  evident  in  his  look,  troubled 
and  vacillating,  wandering  from  shaded  light  on  a 
genre  masterpiece  to  Tanagra  figurines  and  peach- 
blow  vases  on  brackets  and  beyond  to  the  library  where 
shabby  first  editions  jostled  gorgeous  editions  de  luxe, 
brave  in  gilt.  Here  was  indeed  the  residence  of  one 
to  whom  that  much-misused  phrase  "scholar  and 
gentleman"  was  not  misapplied. 

Ulm's  glance  wavered  between  mise  en  scene  and 
cast.  Here  were  the  kind  of  people  his  books  had 
told  him  he  wanted  to  know — ^keen-eyed,  broad-browed 
fellows,  something  vaguely  military  about  them,  the 
majority  slender  and  agile;  yet  with  none  of  them — 
except  young  Petersham,  who  had  modestly  effaced 
himself  in  the  deepest  chair — was  this  the  slenderness 
of  excessive  youth.  All  wore  their  dinner  jackets  or 
dress  clothes  with  the  air  of  men  to  whom  donning 
such  garments  was  not  an  event  but  a  nightly  custom. 
And  all  were  affable  enough,  and,  though  giving  the 


«5  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

impression  of  shrewdly  appraising  him,  did  so  with- 
out offense. 

Norroy  stepped  forward,  smiUng,  having  mixed 
Ulric's  drink  himself. 

"You  said  you  didn't  want  anything,  but  you  have 
the  thirstiest  part  of  the  entertainment,  and  this  cheers 
but  does  not  inebriate — at  least  one  doesn't.  A  French 
drink.    Try  it." 

They  touched  glasses  all  around. 

*T  suppose  you  mean,  Mr.  Norroy;  *To  our  success 
with  the  Black  Book.' "  said  Petersham,  raising  his 
glass.  "If  that's  so,  I'm  sure  we'll  all  drink  deep — 
no  heeltaps.  You,"  he  said,  addressing  Ulm  some- 
what bitterly,  "are  luckier  than  I  am.  You  didn't 
hear  about  the  Black  Book  until  after  you  came  into 
this  service." 

"He  hasn't  heard  yet.  Petersham,"  came  in  Nor- 
Toy's  most  exasperating  drawl.  "Time  enough  for  per- 
sonal grievances  after  you've  heard  his  story.  Now, 
Ulm,  suppose  you  tell  us  what  has  happened  since  you 
first  met  me,  and  also  since  you  got  my  message  this 
morning — if  anything.  Take  your  time;  omit  nothing. 
But  first  the  toast.     Now,  Ulm." 

Norroy  had  so  engineered  it  that  Ulric  Ulm  sat  in 
a  high-backed  Jacobean  chair  directly  under  an  in- 
verted globe  of  light,  while  he  and  the  others  were 
in  the  shadows  cast  by  the  fire.  It  was  an  old  trick; 
thus  all  might  watch  every  change  of  expression  on 
the  part  of  the  speaker  without  Ulm  being  aware  of 
their  particular  scrutiny. 

"I  got  the  notice  of  the  special  civil-service  examina- 


AN  ENEMY  TO  THE  EMPEROR  87 

tion  just  as  you  said  I  would.  It  must  have  been  very 
special  because  I  was  the  only  one  examined.  No  one 
else  anywhere  around.  And  it  wasn't  more  than  a 
day  or  so  afterward  that  I  got  a  letter  on  navy-de- 
partment paper  saying  something  like  this:  'Having 
been  certified  to  this  department  by  the  civil-service 
commission  as  eligible  for  appointment  as  clerk  with 
a  knowledge  of  typewriting,  you  are  hereby  appointed 
a  special  laborer  (clerk)  at  $2.80  per  diem,  in  the 
office  of  the  chief  of  ordnance.  New  York  Navy 
Yard/ 

"And  it  went  on  to  say  I  was  either  to  report  there 
next  morning  or  else  to  signify  my  rejection  of  the 
offer.  Well,  of  course  I  reported,  and  I  did  what  you 
told  me  to  do  by  letter — I  got  your  letter  in  the  same 
mail " 

He  bowed  to  Norroy. 

"That  is,  I  took  lodgings  near  the  navy  yard.  And 
I  had  had  my  mail  sent  care  of  a  pawnbroker,  not 
to  the  Van  Corlear  house.  You  said  not  to,  in  the 
letter,  you  remember " 

"The  house  in  question  being  opposite  that  of  our 
quarry,"  explained  Norroy  parenthetically. 

"Well,  I  reported  to  the  ordnance  office,  and  I  must 
say  I  wasn't  any  too  happy  for  a  while.  It  seems  I 
was  sent  to  take  the  place  of  the  chief's  confidential 
typist,  who  was  also  a  stenographer  and  up  on  all  the 
technical  details  about  guns  and  breechblocks  and  dis- 
appearing-gun  carriages  and  displacements  and  things 
of  that  sort.  The  chief  told  me  so  the  first  thing,  and 
put  me  to  work  studying  up  such  matters  so  I  would 


88  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

know  what  he  was  talking  about  when  he  gave  me  a 
letter.  Deplored  the  economy  of  the  department  in 
sending  a  typist  instead  of  a  competent  stenographer, 
and " 

"And  in  other  ways  acted  exactly  as  he  was  ordered 
to  do  by  Washington,"  smiled  Norroy,  "just  as  the 
stenographer,  Miss  Hudson,  did.  As  she  was  a 
sea-green  incorruptible — the  daughter  of  a  naval 
officer — the  enemy  would  never  have  tried  any  tricks 
on  her;  so  we  had  her  feign  severe  illness  in  order 
to  give  our  young  friend,  here,  a  chance  to  be  tempted. 
And  on  the  day  after  our  young  friend  took  the  ex- 
amination the  appointment  clerk  of  the  navy  depart- 
ment requested  the  C.  S.  C.  to  furnish  him  with  a 
list  of  eligibles  for  the  position  of  typewriting  clerk 
with  a  knowledge  of  German  and  acquainted  with 
ordnance  terms — which,  as  I  had  directed  Ulm  to  say 
he  was  when  writing  down  his  other  qualifications  on 
the  examination  papers.  Thus  we  have  what  seems 
to  be  only  a  routine  appointment.  Any  thing  else 
might  have  scared  them  away,  especially  as  we  do 
not  as  yet  know  where  they  get  their  information. 
Go  on,  Ulm." 

"Well,  I  hadn't  been  on  the  job  more  than  a  day 
or  so  before  I  sat  next  to  a  stunning  girl  in  a  Brook- 
lyn car  who  had  forgotten  her  purse — or  said  she  had 
— which  gave  me  an  opportunity  to  know  her.  If  it 
hadn't  been  that  I  knew  there  was  something  distinctly 
Number  Thirteen  Queer  Street  about  the  whole  affair 
— I  wasn't  in  your  confidence  then,  Mr.  Norroy — I 
would  have  been  flattered  by  the  way  she  seemed  to 


AN  ENEMY  TO  THE  EMPEROR  89 

welcome  my  acquaintance.  Before  the  car  had  gone 
ten  blocks  I  found  I  was  committed  to  take  her  to 
dinner.  Not  that  I  would  have  minded  under  other 
circumstances,  but  as  it  was  I  felt  very  much  like  the 
fly  the  spider  was  inviting  into  his  parlor.  But  noth- 
ing happened  that  night,  except  she  seemed  to  be 
trying  to  give  me  the  idea  that  she  had  fallen  in  love 
with  me.  Which,  suspecting  everybody,  I  took  leave 
to  doubt." 

"Observe,  gentlemen,"  again  interposed  Norroy, 
**he  had  held  his  position  only  three  days  before  our 
friends  the  enemy  knew  all  about  him.  Knew  he  was 
employed  on  confidential  work  of  the  most  serious 
kind,  and  evidently  that  he  was  approachable.  Of 
course,  as  to  the  last  we  cannot  be  sure,  otherwise  it 
would  pin  matters  down  decisively  either  to  the  civil 
service  or  the  appointment  clerk's  office,  their  em- 
ployees being  the  only  two  who  could  have  read  his 
papers  and  known  of  his  apparent  approachability, 
being  of  German  descent,  as  he  wrote  himself  down 
to  be.  You  understand  there  is  nothing  particularly 
secret  about  C.  S.  C.  examination  papers.  They  lie  in 
mail  baskets  on  the  desks,  and  it  would  be  easy  for 
any  employee  to  look  them  over.  Now  we  may  as 
well  except  the  civil  service  commission,  as,  from  the 
enemy's  standpoint,  they  have  no  secrets  worth  dis- 
covering. We  may  say  almost  the  same  for  the  ap- 
pointment clerk's  office.  That  narrows  the  field  of 
our  informer.  Either  he  is  in  the  very  sanctum  of 
the  navy  department — the  secretary's  office,  of  which 
the  appointment  clerk's  office  is  only  a  part — or  else 


90  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

he  is  in  the  navy  yard.  Now  the  fact  that  the  enemy 
knew  that  our  other  young  friend,  Petersham,  here, 
was  also  doing  confidential  work,  was  a  fact  unknown 
to  the  office  of  the  secretary  of  the  navy.  So  when 
the  enemy  receives  news  of  this  sort  about  both  the 
construction  and  repair  and  the  ordnance  departments, 
I  think  you  will  agree  that  it  is  in  the  navy  yard  that 
the  leak  must  be  looked  for." 

"Have  you  investigated?"  asked  Huntley. 

"What — and  scare  off  the  whole  covey  for  the  sake 
of  a  single  bird?    Not  much!    Go  on,  Ulm." 

"Well,"  Ulric  resumed,  "you  know  I  consulted  you 
that  night  after  leaving  her,  and  you  told  me  to  play 
the  game  just  as  she  was  playing  it — to  make  love 
to  her  and  let  her  think  I  was  infatuated.  I  kicked 
on  that,  if  you  will  remember,  and  then  you  came  out 
and  told  me  the  whole  story:  that  I  was  a  Federal 
*plant,'  a  decoy  duck,  and  that  when  she  made  the 
proposition  to  me  to  sell  my  secrets  I  was  to  give  her 
carbons  of  some  of  the  seemingly  less  important  speci- 
fications and  take  the  money " 

"I  need  not  tell  you  that  if  they  pin  any  faith  on 
those  same  specifications  they  are  going  to  have  the 
surprise  of  their  life,"  Norroy  smiled. 

"You  told  me  also,  Mr.  Norroy,  if  you  will  remem- 
ber, that  she  would  probably  suggest  our  going  to  ex- 
pensive places  and  doing  things  generally  tliat  cost 
money.  Well,  you  were  right;  she  did.  And  when 
I  pleaded  lack  of  cash,  she  said  she  had  a  stenographer 
friend  who  worked  for  a  munitions  factory  and  who 


AN  ENEMY  TO  THE  EMPEROR  91 

made  all  sorts  of  money  selling  secrets  she  discovered. 
Well,  you  can  imagine  the  rest " 

There  was  an  approving  murmur  from  the  others 
for  Ulm's  acuteness  in  realizing  that  such  details 
must  be  banal  to  them. 

"She  said  she  would  arrange  the  sale  of  my  carbon 
copies  through  her  friend  if  I  got  the  stuff  to  sell. 
She  did — and  I  did.  I  got  the  money,  bought  dress 
clothes,  took  her  everywhere.  Then,  as  you  directed, 
I  began  to  talk  socialism  to  her,  and,  remembering 
all  my  old-time  beliefs,  I  was  as  enthusiastic  a  social- 
ist as  any  one  could  wish.  Not  that  I  believe  any  the 
less  in  the  ultimate  rightness  of  socialism,  but,  like  so 
many  others,  I've  been  forced  to  disbelieve  in  the 
world  being  ready  for  it. 

"From  the  sort  of  socialism  some  people  practice 
nowaways  was  an  easy  jump  to  pro-Germanism.  I  am 
still  buying  pro-German  newspapers  and  periodi- 
cals, as  you  suggested,  so  I  had  plenty  of  second-hand 
arguments  why  America  was  giving  Germany  the 
worst  of  it,  and  I  protested  in  the  name  of  the  father- 
land. Of  course,  that  was  where  my  German  name 
came  in  handy.  I  could  see  how  satisfied  she  was — 
like  a  cat  cleaning  its  whiskers  after  cream. 
Lord,  she  was  happy  that  night,  for  she  made  sure  I 
was  a  true-blue  Deutschland-uher-alles  fellow.  She 
could  hardly  get  rid  of  me  quick  enough  to  go  and 
tell  whoever  it  is  she  reports  to.  Up  to  that  time  I 
guess  she  thought  I  was  one  of  those  hounds  who 
turn  traitor  for  what  there  is  in  it — the  money,  I 
mean. 


93  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

"The  next  day  was  yesterday.  She  met  me  and 
gave  me  another  try-out  to  make  sure  I  despised 
craven  America  and  loved  the  fatherland  over  all. 
Then  she  said  her  stenographer  friend  had  arranged 
for  me  to  meet  the  man  who  was  paying  me,  and  if 
I  brought  certain  other  papers  with  me  she  would  take 
me  directly  to  this  man  after  dinner  to-morrow  night. 
I  am  to  meet  her  at  Sydenham's  restaurant,  have 
dinner  with  her,  and  go  afterward.  That  was  the  last 
I  saw  of  her." 

He  finished  with  a  faint  movement  of  one  who 
pushes  something  disagreeable  away  from  him.  "I'm 
glad  it's  over,"  he  said  simply.  "When  you  told  me 
I  had  done  my  share  and  you  would  attend  to  the  re- 
mainder, I  could  have  shouted  for  joy.  And  I  want 
to  tell  you  right  now,  Mr.  Norroy,  that  you  were 
putting  a  severe  strain  on  me.  That  woman  is 
downright  fascinating  and  when  she  put  her 
arms  around  my  neck  and  told  me  all  tiie  wonder- 
ful things  we  would  do  together  when  I  got  the  rest 
of  the  money — well,  I'm  only  human,  and  I  had  to 
keep  the  Belgian  massacres  and  the  torpedoing  of  the 
Lusitania  and  horrible  things  like  that  before  me  all 
the  time  in  order  to  hate  her  as  a  downright  American 
ought  to.  She  may  be  a  poisonous  snake,  but  she's 
a  beautiful  one  too " 

"Yes,"  agreed  Norroy,  grimly.  "Our  other  young 
friend,  Petersham,  can  tell  you  how  another  such 
snake  nearly  landed  him  in  a  Federal  prison  for 
life.  You've  done  remarkably  well,  Ulm.  Not  that 
I  was  afraid  you  wouldn't.    I've  made  my  living  judg- 


AN  ENEMY  TO  THE  EMPEROR  93 

ing  men  for  nearly  a  score  of  years,  and  I  make 
mighty  few  mistakes.  I  hope  your  next  assignment 
won't  include  any  such  temptation.  It  isn't  the  nicest 
kind  of  work,  but  when  the  enemy  employs  such  tactics 
— what  would  you?" 

He  turned  to  the  others.  "Now  you  know  what 
will  happen.  Petersham  has  told  you  of  his  case. 
Ulm  will  be  conducted  upstairs  to  The  Man,  whoever 
he  is — the  head  and  shoulders  of  this  organization — 
and  he  will  question  him,  then  produce  the  Black  Book 
for  Ulm  to  write  down  his  name.  Now,  this 
book " 

"There  are  three  of  them,  Mr.  Norroy,"  interrupted 
Petersham.  "I  forgot  to  tell  you.  When  the  man 
took  it  out,  it  looked  like  one  big  black  book,  but  it 
was  really  a  leather  case  with  a  back  like  a  book,  and 
inside  it  were  smaller  books.  The  one  he  opened  was 
full  of  names  and  addresses,  and  I  didn't  think  about 
the  others  imtil  just  now.  No  doubt  they  are  the 
same." 

"Probably  some  system  of  classification,"  agreed 
Norroy.  "But  the  point  is  this:  They  doubtless  have 
other  such  lists  in  other  cities — certainly  in  the  Wil- 
helmstrasse;  so  they  would  not  hesitate  to  destroy 
this  book,  or  these  books,  if  they  thought  there  was  a 
chance  of  them  falling  into  our  hands." 

He  turned  to  Petersham.  "There  is  a  fireplace 
there?"  The  boy  nodded.  "Then,  you  see,  it  would 
be  easy  to  bum  this  book,  or  these  books,  together 
with  other  important  papers,  the  moment  an  alarm 
went  up.     I  have  examined  the  house  carefully,  and 


94  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

there  is  no  way  of  breaking  in  without  giving  an 
alarm.  Also,  from  the  Ingenious  system  of  reflecting 
glasses  I  noted  on  the  window  sills  of  each  floor, 
persons  skulking  along  the  street  can  be  instantly 
noted.  No  doubt  they  keep  a  good  watch.  More- 
over, there  is  always  a  watcher  at  each  corner,  front 
and  back;  like  policemen  on  point-duty.  That  was 
why  I  hired  a  room  opposite — that  I  might  keep 
watch  without  being  seen. 

"They  have  even  provided  against  an  attack  over 
the  roofs  by  renting  a  house  separated  from  the  rest 
of  the  block  by  garden  walks  on  either  side  of  it. 
So  you  see  there  is  no  possibility  of  entering  the  house 
by  force  and  securing  that  book,  or  those  books.  No, 
they  can  only  be  gotten  by  the  man  who  goes  there 
under  a  safe-conduct — as  Ulm  Is  going.  And,  much 
as  I  trust  you,  young  Ulrlc,  I  hardly  feel  that  you 
have  the  experience  to  handle  such  a  situation.  No. 
Here  is  my  plan." 

Despite  the  fact  that  they  were  in  his  own  apart- 
ment, which  long  since  he  had  taken  the  precaution  to 
have  provided  with  soundproof  walls  and  windows, 
he  lowered  his  voice.  The  others  instinctively  drew 
their  chairs  nearer. 

And  there,  as  the  fire  died  down  unheeded,  he  out- 
lined his  plan — one  so  desperate  that  Ulm  had  diffi- 
culty in  connecting  it  with  this  calm-voiced  dandy  who 
drawled  so  languidly  and  who  lived  In  a  treasure 
house  of  rare  books  and  china.  However,  it  was  ap- 
parent that  the  others  knew  from  experience  that  he 


AN  ENEMY  TO  THE  EMPEROP  95 

would  do  what  he  said,  for  their  faces  grew  grimmer 
and  grimmer. 

"Then  the  first  thing  to  do,"  he  heard  Carson  Hunt- 
ley say,  "is  to  get  this  girl  out  of  the  way  and  compel 
her  to  write  a  letter  that  will  identify  the  man  who 
carries  it  as  Ulm." 

"Precisely,"  agreed  Norroy,  lighting  one  of  his 
eternal,  gold-crested  cigarettes. 

Ulric  Ulm  was  of  the  opinion  that  matters  looked 
very  bad  indeed  for  the  young  siren  who  had  tempted 
him. 


CHAPTER  IV 

In  Which  Yorke  Norroy  Enters  the  House  of 
THE  Betrayers 

THE  big  double  house  in  Van  Corlear  Square 
was  dark  save  for  such  light  as  escaped 
through  the  chinks  and  crannies  of  window 
frames  and  athwart  the  closed  blinds.  A  man,  who 
carried  a  letter  prominently  displayed  in  one  hand  as 
one  might  carry  a  flag  of  truce,  paused  at  its  garden 
gate  before  pushing  it  open,  knowing  as  he  did  that 
if  he  were  not  already  ol^served  the  creaking  of  the 
iron  hinges  would  surely  bring  him  to  the  perhaps  un- 
favorable attention  of  those  who  were  within. 

The  pause  was  but  momentary,  but  that  moment 
held  the  final  decision  that  made  all  the  difference  be- 
tween the  comparative  safety  of  the  streets  and  the 
unknown  terrors  that  awaited  within.  For  once  in- 
side, lie  was  no  longer  on  American  territory ;  he  was 
as  surely  and  certainly  in  Berlin  as  if  he  had  stepped 
into  an  inner  sanctum  of  the  Wilhelmstrasse. 

There  was  considerable  delay  in  admitting  him. 
Although  he  knew  not  from  what  angle,  he  was  cer- 
tain that  somewhere  eyes  scrutinized  him  closely. 
But  finally  the  door  opened  and  he  surrendered  his 

96 


AN  ENEMY  TO  THE  EMPEROR  97 

letter  to  a  man  who,  to  all  appearances,  was  the  typical 
English  manservant. 

The  butler  fingered  the  missive  doubtfully. 

"It  is  from  Miss  Flora  Reyes,"  his  visitor  said,  im- 
patiently. "She  was  to  bring  me  here,  but  for  some 
reason  she  didn't.  That  letter  probably  explains,  and 
you'd  better  take  it  to  your  master." 

The  butler  still  stood,  undecided.  "You  were  to 
have  come  with  a  lady?  Well "  Then,  as  if  sud- 
denly making  up  his  mind,  he  called :  "Henry !"  And 
a  footman  appeared  from  the  far  reaches  of  the  hall. 

"Take  this  to  the  third  floor,"  he  directed,  and  gave 
him  the  letter.  But  not  for  a  second  did  he  allow 
his  gaze  to  wander  from  his  visitor.  "Sit  down, 
sir,"  he  said  sullenly,  as  the  footman  made  his  way 
upstairs.  He  indicated  a  hall  seat.  His  visitor  sat 
down  while  the  butler  towered  over  him,  effectually 
blocking  his  way  should  he  be  seized  with  a  sudden 
desire  to  proceed  in  a  forward  direction. 

But  apparently  his  visitor  had  no  such  intention. 
He  seemed  to  be  whistling  between  his  teeth  in  a 
bored  sort  of  way,  fiddling  with  a  cigarette  meanwhile 
and  shooting  forth  little  clouds  of  smoke  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  chandelier. 

"The  master  will  see  you,  sir." 

So  silently  had  the  footman  returned  that  neither 
the  visitor  nor  his  warder  heard  him.  He  stood  at 
the  head  of  the  stairway,  bowing.  The  visitor  arose. 
The  butler  backed  away,  but  when  his  ward  stepped 
upward,  followed  him.  Thus  they  ascended  the  stair- 
way until  they  reached  the  third  floor. 


98  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

Here,  the  visitor  noted,  the  stairway  came  to  an 
abrupt  halt,  being  separated  from  the  landing  by  iron- 
studded  doors  which  gave  evidence  that  they  were 
steel-sheathed  within.  Since  the  footman's  exit  they 
"had  closed,  and  he  must  press  with  his  foot  twice  then 
once  and  twice  again  on  the  carpet  of  the  next  to  the 
last  step — which  told  the  visitor  that  there  was  a 
button  underneath  that  gave  warning  of  any  approach 
— and  that  needed  to  be  pressed  in  just  this  peculiar 
way  if  admittance  was  to  be  gained. 

Now  the  doors  swung  back  automatically  and  re- 
vealed themselves  as  armored  within,  just  as  the  visitor 
had  expected.  More  than  that,  the  hallway  outside 
was  a  veritable  arsenal.  Greeners,  Sniders,  Krag- 
Jorgensens — all  manner  of  rifles  and  carbines  hung 
on  one  wall;  while  another  was  devoted  to  automatic 
pistols  and  revolvers — Lugers,  Savages,  Brownings, 
Colts. 

The  footman  was  holding  back  the  portieres  as  the 
guest  gazed,  a  fact  he  now  announced  by  a  cough. 
The  other  heard,  saw,  and  entered. 

He  found  himself  in  a  room  that  ran  the  entire 
length  of  the  house — a  room  lined  with  file  boxes  and 
books,  ordnance  maps  below  and  above  the  shelves, 
a  huge  globe  such  as  teachers  use  in  the  center  of  the 
room,  ornamented  by  multicolored  tacks,  as  were  the 
maps. 

Whole  sections  of  shelves  were  devoted  to  new 
books  in  clean  wrappers,  row  after  row  of  the  same 
titles.  These  the  visitor  took  to  be  propagandist 
literature,  having  recognized  the  names  of  some  of 


AN_ENEMY  TO  THE  EMPEROR  99 

the  most  pro-German  writers  of  the  day.  Unopened 
bundles  of  the  same — he  judged — were  stacked  up  be- 
hind the  half-opened  door  of  a  closet. 

There  was  little  furniture,  and  what  there  was  of 
it  was,  with  one  exception,  chairs,  high-backed  Gothic 
chairs,  a  number  of  which  had  been  pushed  into  the 
space  under  tlie  bookshelves  as  if  to  get  them  out  of 
the  way,  leaving  a  clear  space  in  the  center  of  the 
room  until  the  one  exception  was  reached — a  long, 
narrow  table  such  as  might  have  graced  the  refectory 
of  some  ancient  monastery.  This  was  set  broadside 
between  a  pair  of  double  windows  now  securely  shut- 
tered from  within. 

Here  sat  the  man  who,  of  all  the  people  in  the 
world,  his  visitor  most  longed  to  see.  He  was  a  huge, 
powerful  fellow,  with  a  profusion  of  hair  and  whiskers 
which  left  little  of  his  face  uncovered  save  his  nose 
and  eyes.  But  the  latter  were  enough  to  give  dis- 
tinction to  any  face — especially  when  they  were  sud- 
dently  turned,  as  they  were  now.  As  another  might 
turn  a  brace  of  pistols  and  bid  the  halted  one  "stand 
and  deliver,"  so  these  eyes  seemed  to  say:  "Yield  up 
your  secrets;  concealment  is  vain." 

He  held  a  folded  note  in  his  hand  which  he  had 
been  scrutinizing  with  unusual  care,  turning  from  it 
to  other  specimens  in  the  same  hand  which  apparently 
had  been  stored  in  the  open  file  box  at  his  elbow. 
Now,  as  with  a  gesture  he  bade  his  visitor  draw  the 
nearest  chair  to  the  opposite  side  of  the  table  and  be 
seated,  he  asked  sharply  in  German: 

"You  are  Ulrich  von  Uhlm?" 


xoo  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

The  other  nodded. 

"Do  you  know  why  Miss  Reyes  did  not  come  to- 
night?" 

"She  said  the  letter  would  explain.  But  she  sealed 
it,  so  I  suppose  she  did  not  want  me  to  know,"  the 
other  answered,  with  apparent  sincerity. 

"Hum!"  commented  the  bearded  man,  and  glanced 
at  the  note,  which  read,  in  part: 

I  have  every  reason  to  believe  that  there  are  those  outside  who 
are  following  me,  so  I  dare  not  bring  this  man  straight  to  the 
house.  I  will  leave  shortly  after  he  does  to  throw  them  off  the 
track.  I  do  not  believe  they  know  I  am  here  to  meet  him,  as 
we  came  separately.  He  will  carry  other  papers  by  which  you 
will  be  able  to  identify  him.  I  dare  not  write  down  his  name 
lest  this  letter  be  lost 

The  note  had  been  written  on  the  paper  of  a  well- 
known  Broadway  restaurant. 

"Miss  Reyes  says  something  here  about — other 
papers,"  said  the  man  at  the  desk.  The  visitor  nodded, 
plunged  his  hand  into  an  inner  pocket,  and  handed 
over  a  long  manila  envelope  sealed  with  red  sealing 
wax  and  addressed  to  Ulrich  von  Uhlm  at  a  Brook- 
lyn address. 

"That  was  in  case  of  loss,"  said  the  visitor,  indi- 
cating the  address.  "I  thought  it  best  to  take  all 
precautions.  You  will  find  there  the  plans  and  speci- 
fications of  the  newly  adopted  air-craft  guns — every- 
thing I  promised,  except  the  locations  of  the  disap- 


AN  ENEMY  TO  THE  EMPEROR         loi 

pearing-gun  carriages.  This  was  taken  out  of  the 
hands  of  the  ordnance  department  and  given  to  the 
chief  of  construction  and  repair." 

The  man  at  the  desk  drew  forth  a  pair  of  heavy, 
gold-mounted  glasses,  the  chain  to  which  uncoiled 
itself  from  inside  a  metal  button  pinned  to  his  waist- 
coat. Opening  the  envelope,  he  peered  at  each  of  the 
papers  in  turn. 

"Grood!"  he  said,  removing  his  glasses  and  jerking 
at  their  chain,  whereupon  they  resumed  their  former 
position  under  his  coat.  "Now,  Ulrich  von  Uhlm,  a 
few  words  about  yourself.  It  would  seem  that  you 
are  one  of  those  in  whom  the  love  of  the  fatherland 
has  never  wavered.  Since  I  first  heard  of  you,  I  have 
made  inquiries  in  Germany  concerning  your  family, 
and  I  find  that  the  Uhlms  are  a  family  closely  asso- 
ciated with  the  history  of  Saxony;  that  you  are  of 
a  descent  that  makes  you  worthy  of  the  all  highest's 
commission,  civil  or  military,  once  the  world  has  been 
made  to  understand  the  superiority  of  our  system — 
of  ours,  the  only  real  civilization.  When  victory 
comes  to  us,  there  will  be  need  for  many  such  efficient 
officials,  and  you  shall  be  one  of  those  first  considered. 
Meanwhile,  your  loyalty  shall  be  put  to  the  test  by 
working  iii  the  dark — as,  alas!  so  many  must — until 
the  time  for  our  rightful  recognition  comes.  That 
you  will  be  paid  is,  of  course,  necessary,  for  man 
must  live,  and  even  the  most  exalted  patriotism  can- 
not put  bread  into  our  bellies.     But  you  shall  work 


loa  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

no  more  as  a  mere  hireling.  Hereafter  you  shall  be  one 
of  us,  entitled  to  our  protection  in  time  of  danger; 
entitled  to  be  succored  and  sent  out  of  the  country 
safely,  or  defended  adequately  in  the  courts,  should 
occasion  arise.  I  call  on  you,  therefore,  Ulrich  von 
Uhlm,  to  write  down  your  name  among  those  devoted 
to  our  cause,  and  then  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance 
to  the  all  highest." 

He  paused.  His  visitor  bowed  his  head  in  sub- 
mission. The  man  at  the  desk  crossed  to  the  great 
safe  just  opposite  the  desk,  and  twirled  the  combina- 
tion knob  first  to  a  number,  then  to  a  word.  Opened, 
it  revealed  packets  of  papers  in  the  pigeonholes,  and 
on  the  bottom  lay  thickly  piled  up  packages  of  bills 
and  rouleaux  of  gold  and  silver  money. 

He  unlocked  the  strong  box  and  took  therefrom 
what  to  all  appearances  was  a  black  book,  its  illumin- 
ated letters  naming  it  "The  Bible  in  the  Levant."  It 
was  bound  in  black  morocco  and  indented  deeply  at 
its  brass-bound  edges,  between  which  the  pages  were 
tinted  red — or  so  it  seemed.  But  this  was  the  same 
error  Petersham  had  made  at  first,  for  the  man's 
fingers  moved  so  quickly  one  hardly  saw  him  press 
two  of  the  lower  brass  tips  and  slide  out  from  their 
case  the  four  smaller  books  that  the  fake  cover  held. 

"Here,"  said  the  man,  sliding  out  one  of  the  books 
and  opening  it,  "is  my  name — as  it  was  first  written 
down."  He  had  turned  the  thin  but  tough  pages  of 
paper,  and  under  the  "H's"  pointed  out  his  name. 
*'Heinzemann,  Johann."     "No  *von'  like  your  own. 


AN  ENEMY  TO  THE  EMPEROR  105 

young  sir;  a  plain  name  for  a  plain  man;  yet  my 
long  and  faithful  service  has  finally  brought  its  re- 
ward in  the  position  I  now  hold — that  of  commander 
in  chief  of  the  all  highest's  'Intelligenza'  in  America. 
That  name  was  written  long  ago,  young  sir." 

This  was  needless  information,  for  the  ink  in  which 
every  name  on  the  page  was  written  had  long  since 
faded.  Only  a  little  less  so  was  the  line  in  red  ink 
that  was  drawn  through  the  name  and  to  which  the 
visitor's  attention  was  also  called. 

"The  red  line — that  is  promotion.  My  name  figures 
in  each  of  these  other  three,  Classes  'C,'  'B,'  and  'A,' 
In  all  but  the  book  of  'Class  A'  you  will  find  the  red 
line  drawn  through  it.  The  green  line  signifies  that 
the  operator  came  to  his  death  through  violence.  The 
violet  line  is  for  spies  and  traitors — ^you  will  find  both 
violet  and  green  lines  through  their  names.  The  blue- 
pencil  line  is  for  natural  death.  But  come,  now — ^you 
are  ready  and  I  am  wasting  time." 

He  turned  the  pages  until  he  reached  the  "U" 
section,  turning  its  pages  until  the  names  were  in 
ink  less  faded  until  a  page  was  reached  when  it  was 
quite  fresh,  as  though  written  but  yesterday — last 
week — ^last  month.  Heinzmann  found  the  place, 
dipped  pen  in  ink,  and  raised  his  eyes — to  look  straight 
into  the  ugly,  vicious  hole  of  an  automatic  revolver, 
over  the  sight  of  which  was  clamped  a  Maxim 
silencer. 

He  leaped  to  his  feet,  an  unuttered  oath  choking 
in  his  throat. 


I04  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

"You  will  please  resume  your  seat,  Herr  Heinz- 
mann,"  said  the  stranger,  his  hand  reaching  out  for 
the  four  books.  The  voice,  no  longer  feigned,  was 
that  of  Yorke  Norroy, 


CHAPTER  V 
Tells  About  the  Battle  of  Van  Corlear  Square 

AS  Norroy  pocketed  the  papers,  Heinzmann 
sprang;  but  it  was  only  to  meet  the  flattened 
palm  of  the  secret  agent  and  to  collapse  in  his 
chair.  Then  his  pointed  finger  stretched  out  to  the 
button  which  set  the  mechanism  in  motion  which 
opened  the  steel-sheathed  doors.  Before  Norroy  could 
interfere,  he  had  accomplished  his  aim,  and  the  secret 
agent  heard  the  scuffling  of  men  on  the  stairs.  He 
had  neither  the  time  nor  the  life  to  waste  in  playing 
humanitarian;  so  his  thin,  steely  fingers  shifted  the 
position  of  his  automatic  pistol  and  brought  down  the 
butt  on  Heinzmann's  head.  Almost  in  the  same 
second,  Norroy  turned  to  press  the  second  button. 
He  heard  the  doors  clang  with  a  deep  boom  as  they 
shut,  and  an  angry  exclamation  was  suddenly  cut 
short. 

Norroy  had  acted  none  too  soon,  for  all  his  rapidity 
of  movement — not  soon  enough,  seemingly;  for  he 
heard  the  vicious  ping  of  a  small  projectile  propelled 
at  a  rate  too  rapid  to  be  other  than  a  bullet  of  the 
same  sort  his  own  silent  weapon  instantly  gave 
back,  and  just  as  the  velvet  portieres  were  pushed 

X05 


io6  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

open  in  his  rear.  One  man  fell  back  into  another's 
arms,  his  automatic  going  off  in  air,  as  the  suddenly 
stiffened  finger  continued  to  press  it,  and  shattering 
the  globes  of  the  overhead  electrolier. 

But  the  second  man  came  on,  undaunted;  and  Nor- 
roy,  loath  as  he  was  to  take  life  so  ruthlessly,  steeled 
himself  to  the  remembrance  that  he,  too,  was  a  soldier, 
if  not  on  a  foreign  battlefield — and  fired  before  the 
other  had  time  to  raise  his  weapon.  The  second  man 
tossed  up  his  hands ;  then,  with  an  ugly  rattling  in  his 
throat,  he  collapsed  like  an  overturned  rocking-chair, 
head  and  feet  seeming  momentarily  to  meet  as  he  fell. 

"God!"  said  Norroy,  and  put  his  hand  to  his  own 
throat. 

But  he  was  soon  recalled  from  the  horror  of  an- 
other's death.  A  dull  booming  began  somewhere  in 
the  rear;  it  meant  they  were  battering  on  the  steel- 
studded  door.  Whether  he  was  to  escape  or  not  he 
did  not  know. 

But  the  Black  Book  should;  that  was  certain.  Nor- 
roy had  not  isolated  himself  in  the  house  of  his  enemies 
with  any  haphazard  plans.  His  men  were  in  the 
house  opposite,  expectant  of  the  move  he  was  about 
to  make,  only  waiting  for  the  signal  to  dash  down- 
stairs and  into  the  street  to  pick  up  what  he  had 
expected  to  hurl,  and  which  he  now  held  in  his  hands. 
*  The  battering  on  the  door  had  died  down ;  followed 
an  ominous  silence.  He  listened  and  heard  the 
shrill  squeak  of  steel  against  steel.  Evidently  one 
with  a  mind  more  masterful  had  taken  charge,  and, 
scorning  the  hysteria  of  more  humble  minds,  had  set 


AN  ENEMY  TO  THE  EMPEROR  107 

to  work  scientifically  to  dig  out  his  badger.  It  meant 
only  a  question  of  time  before  he  would  succeed. 
Norroy  knew  he  must  be  quick  if  either  he  or  the  book 
were  to  leave  that  room. 

Norroy's  fingers  trembled  slightly  as  he  lighted  a 
little  Catherine  wheel  he  took  from  his  pocket  and 
held  it  until  the  flame  began  to  leap  along  the  fuse. 
Then  he  hurled  it  through  the  branches  of  the  tree. 

Once  he  saw  it  fall  sputtering  to  the  street,  he 
snatched  an  elastic  band  from  the  desk,  and  not 
troubling  to  return  them  to  their  case,  which  had 
fallen  on  the  floor  in  his  struggle  with  Heinzmann, 
he  fastened  together  the  four  thin  books.  Aiming  at 
the  brightly  gyrating  Catherine  wheel  below,  he  flung 
them  after  it. 

But  such  are  the  small  things  that  alter  destinies, 
there  blew  along  the  street  at  that  instant — one  would 
have  sworn  it  turned  a  corner — a  gusty  gale  of  sea 
mist  and  rain  from  the  East  River  that  separated  the 
books  while  they  were  still  in  mid-air. 

So  that  before  Carson  Huntley  and  the  others  could 
reach  the  street,  three  persons  who  passed — a  girl  and 
a  gray-beard,  these  two  in  company,  and  close  at  their 
heels  a  lout  of  a  boy — ^became  members  of  the  cast 
of  that  long-drawn-out  drama,  "The  Quest  of  the 
Black  Book." 

But  Norroy  was  to  know  nothing  of  this  for  some 
time  to  come.  For,  now  that  he  had  rid  himself  of  the 
books  and  had  every  reason  to  believe  they  would  be 
picked  up  almost  immediatelv  by  his  associates  from 


io8  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

across  the  way,  he  turned  to  make  possible  his  own 
escape.     But  first  to  find  his  get-away. 

Manifestly,  to  go  by  the  front  windows  was  im- 
possible. There,  dangling  from  above  in  the  light 
from  the  street  lamp,  he  would  be  too  fair  a  mark  for 
desperate  men,  already  discovered  in  their  treason  and 
carrying  noiseless  weapons,  especially  as  he  must  swing 
past  two  windows  on  the  way  down. 

He  ran,  rubber-shod,  silently,  to  a  rear  window, 
which  he  raised  with  a  minimum  of  noise.  Here 
matters  were  worse ;  to  pass  down  he  must  first  reach 
a  lower  roof,  where  he  had  no  doubt  he  would  be  shot 
instantly.  Remained  only  the  side  windows,  and,  the 
ominous  squeaking  of  the  steel  continuing,  he  raised 
one  of  these.  Here  matters  were  nearly  as  bad. 
There  was  a  sun-parlor  roof  that  curved  out  from  the 
middle  of  the  first  floor,  supported  by  two  portico 
columns. 

In  desperation — for  he  knew  his  time  was  short — 
he  took  no  time  to  be  noiseless  with  the  last  window. 
This  he  flung  up.  To  his  joy,  there  was  but  one 
window  to  each  of  the  floors  below.  As  both  of 
these  were  bay  windows  and  both  were  dark,  he  would, 
be  secure  from  the  gaze  of  any  one  within,  especially' 
as  the  bushy  boughs  of  a  huge  evergreen,  an  enormous 
cedar,  shut  out  all  light  from  the  street. 

Norroy  heard  something  giving;  it  was  as  if  a 
knee  had  been  placed  against  the  weakened  supports 
of  the  double  doors  and  they  had  bent  inward.  He 
had  found  his  way  out  just  in  time. 

He  reached  beneath  his  coat  and  brought  out  a 


AN  ENEMY  TO  THE  EMPEROR         109 

coil  of  fine  wire  and  linen  cord,  woven  flat,  just  strong 
enough  to  support  his  weight,  yet  so  fine  that  a  hun- 
dred feet,  rolled  up,  occupied  not  much  more  room  than 
the  same  amount  of  twine.  This  was  an  invention  of 
Norroy's.  From  another  pocket  he  brought  out  a 
double  hook  such  as  is  used  for  sailors'  hammocks. 
One  end  of  the  wire  he  had  been  prudent  enough  to 
have  made  into  a  secure  loop  before  starting  on  his 
perilous  mission.  This  he  now  attached  to  one  bend 
of  the  hook,  and,  holding  hook  and  loop  fast,  tossed 
the  coil  from  the  window,  where  by  sheer  weight  it 
payed  itself  out  until  it  hung  a  long,  curly  line,  a 
jarring  of  which  indicated  that  what  remained  of  the 
coil  had  touched  the  ground. 

The  door  gave  way  with  a  loud  crash.  Norroy 
waited  but  for  one  thing.  Raising  his  automatic,  he 
fired  at  the  remaining  light — that  of  the  desk  lamp; 
for  to  have  tried  to  escape  with  light  in  the  room  was 
but  an  invitation  to  shoot  him  down  as  he  slipped 
along  the  side  of  the  house.  The  crash  of  the  stand 
as  it  fell,  and  the  tinkle  of  glass,  left  the  room  entirely 
dark. 

Jamming  down  the  hook  and  making  it  doubly 
secure  with  a  blow  from  the  butt  of  his  weapon,  Nor- 
roy, who  had  lain  on  the  sill,  half-way  out,  when  he 
fired,  now  released  his  hold  on  the  wood,  and,  bracing 
his  toes  against  the  wall,  embarked  upon  his  journey 
into  emptiness. 

He  heard  curses  above  and  the  fall  of  something 
heavy,  so  judged  his  enemies  had  tripped  upon  the 
bodies  that  lay  by  the  portieres.    They  must  make  a 


no  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

light  before  they  could  do  anything  further.  He 
doubted  if  they  had  anticipated  his  escape;  could  fancy 
the  pseudo  butler  and  footman  testifying  he  had  car- 
ried no  package  of  any  sort,  and  that  they  both  had 
mentally  inventoried  his  person  for  suspicious  bulges 
of  any  sort,  and  had  seen  none — ^his  revolver  had  swung 
in  an  arm  holster,  a  long  thin  affair  of  Harveyized 
steel.    Therefore  how  could  he  have  escaped? 

He  shifted  his  grip  again  and  yet  again.  Despite 
his  cautious  puttering  about  with  his  rubber-shod  toes 
against  the  brick  and  mortar  of  the  wall,  the  wire  slid 
through  his  hands,  clad  in  re-enforced  gloves,  cutting 
them  cruelly.  Now  his  neck  came  in  contact  with  the 
cedar  boughs,  then  his  face;  the  needles  of  the  cedar 
attacked  his  nose,  his  mouth,  so  that  he  must  close 
his  eyes;  and,  finding  himself  between  two  evils,  he 
let  the  wire  slide.  It  was  like  so  much  red-hot  metal. 
When  his  feet  touched  ground,  his  hands  felt  as 
though  they  had  been  incinerated.  It  would  be  many 
weeks  before  they  healed. 

But  he  heeded  them  not  at  all  for  the  moment. 
There  was  too  much  to  be  done.  He  ran  headlong 
to  the  street.  Baedeker  Bok  sprang  forward  in  the 
darkness  of  the  garden  with  upraised  weapon.  But 
his  voice  identified  him  and  Norroy  gripped  his  arm. 

**You  got  what  I  threw?"  he  asked  breathlessly. 

"Huntley  has  them.  He's  at  the  back  of  the  house 
with  James  and  Jarboe.  I'm  here  with  Wammell  and 
Furnival.  Petersham's  at  the  phone  round  the  corner. 
The  D.  J.  men  and  the  bomb-squad  police  ought  to 
be  here  any  moment  now.     Here  they  are!     Look!" 


AN  ENEMY  TO  THE  EMPEROR  iii 

Norroy  immediately  took  charge.  The  men  from 
headquarters — the  bomb  squad,  so  called  since  their 
mission  was  chiefly  to  look  out  for  bombing  and 
arson  generally,  which  would  probably  be  traceable 
to  this  home — and  those  from  the  department  of 
justice,  especially  appointed  for  just  such  round-ups 
as  this,  crowded  around  him. 

"Scatter!  Scatter!"  Norroy  commanded  quickly, 
but  not  before  the  man  nearest  him  had  clutched  at 
his  throat,  doubled  at  the  knees,  and  fallen  on  his  face. 
"They  have  silencers  on  their  guns.  Out  of  the  light, 
quick!  Half  of  you  to  the  rear;  you  with  the  axes 
break  down  the  doors!  The  remainder  fall  back  and 
cover  them.  Fire  at  the  flashes;  that  is  the  only  way 
you'll  identify  them.  It  looks  like  it  would  be  worse 
than  I  anticipated !"  For  the  flashes,  each  one  indicating 
a  weapon  fired,  were  lighting  up  the  darkness  at  the 
rate  of  half  a  dozen  to  the  minute.  The  front  of  the 
darkened  house  was  alive  with  them.  "It  seems  they 
haven't  the  get-aways  I  thought  they  had.  It  means 
a  general  defense.  Sergeant,  send  in  a  call  for  the 
reserves." 

It  will  be  long  remembered  by  the  inhabitants  of 
Van  Corlear  Square,  that  round-up,  that  stubborn  de- 
fense of  No.  27;  and,  unless  they  read  this,  they  will 
continue  to  esteem  it  a  peculiarly  awful  gambling  raid 
and  will  go  on  wondering  why  no  word  of  it  appeared 
in  the  newspapers.  For  before  the  attack  began,  gates 
and  window  screens  of  thin,  tough  steel  appeared  to 
guard  doors  and  windows,  making  the  entrance  of 


xia  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

the  intruders  doubly  difficult,  and  while  the  police- 
men used  axes  and  battering-rams,  a  galling  fire  poured 
down  from  all  the  upstairs  windows.  And,  although 
this  gradually  lessened  as  secret  agents  and  depart- 
ment of  justice  men  lying  flat  in  the  darkness  of  the 
sidewalk  or  of  the  garden — ^having  previously  ex- 
tinguished the  street  lights — winnowed  out  the  marks- 
men, three  ambulances  had  their  full  quota  before 
it  was  over. 

Then  suddenly  the  fire  ceased,  and  the  house  became 
as  dark  as  before.  The  axes  speedily  completed  their 
demolishment  of  the  basement  door,  and  those  police- 
men who  were  unhurt,  together  with  those  only 
slightly  wounded,  were  rushing  into  the  lower  hall- 
way, followed  by  the  department  of  justice  men  when 
they  heard,  high  and  shrill,  the  warning  whistle  of 
Norroy. 

They  crowded  back. 

"Out  of  the  house!"  called  Norroy.  "Out  of  the 
house !"  he  commanded  sternly,  since  there  were  some 
who  seemed  averse  to  obeying.  "Quicker  than  that, 
you  fools!  Get  away  from  the  house  as  fast  as  you 
can!    To  the  other  side  of  the  street,  quick!" 

A  strange  fear  was  gripping  him.  That  silence,  fol- 
lowing so  closely  upon  such  a  determined  defense,  was 
ominous  in  the  extreme,  just  as  the  silence  that  had 
followed  the  battering  against  the  steel-sheathed  door 
upstairs  had  been.  He  knew  there  had  been  no  sud- 
den change  of  plans;  that  all  this  was  part  of  some 
long-prearranged  plan,  as  his  own  had  been. 


AN  ENEMY  TO  THE  EMPEROR         113 

He  had  not  long  to  wait,  for  a  long  tongue  of  flame 
lapped  outward  from  a  third-floor  window  and  Ht  up 
the  cedar  trees ;  another  followed,  and  another.  Then 
it  seemed  from  the  very  earth  beneath  them  there  came 
a  dull  roar,  and  in  a  minute  the  air  was  hot  and  full 
of  flying  particles  that  stung  the  face  and  hands.  It 
subsided  almost  as  quickly  as  it  had  come  about ;  but 
■when  they  looked,  the  old  house  at  Number  27  was  in 
a  sad  plight. 

The  lower  front  had  been  literally  blown  out;  the 
basement  and  drawing-room  doors  and  windows  were 
gone ;  inside  was  a  mere  shell,  while  overhead  the  fire, 
fanned  by  the  great  draft  from  below,  waxed  hotter 
and  hotter. 

"Give  the  alarm !"  commanded  Norroy  curtly. 

Immediately  two  uninjured  policemen  ran  to  the 
nearest  fire  boxes. 

"They  fought  us  off  while  they  got  out  all  their 
most  important  books  and  documents,"  explained  Nor- 
roy grimly  to  Carson  Huntley;  "then  they  set  fire  to 
the  rest,  and  after  they  had  passed  safely  out  by  what- 
ever underground  passages  they  had  ready,  they  left 
a  bomb  behind  them  to  block  up  the  way  and  destroy 
all  traces  of  the  passage  and  incidentally  to  assist  the 
destruction  they  left  behind  them  upstairs.  Well, 
thank  the  Lord,  we've  got  what's  most  important — 
those  books.  It  won't  be  long  before  we've  broken 
their  system  to  bits  now.    You  have  them,  Carson  ?" 

Carson  Huntley  plunged  hand  into  pocket  and  pro- 


114  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

duced  two  thin  books.  "There  they  are,"  he  answered, 
"Why,  what's  the  matter,  Yorke?    Nothing  wrong?" 

"Where  are  the  other  two?"  demanded  Norroy,  in 
an  awful  voice.  "Where  are  they,  Carson?"  In  his 
excitement  he  found  he  was  gripping  Huntley's  collar. 
"Quick!    Tell  me!" 

One  look  at  the  other's  face  convinced  him  that  Car- 
son was  ignorant  of  the  existence  of  any  save  those  in 
his  hands.  Helpless  with  fear,  trembling,  hardly  able 
to  control  his  voice,  Norroy  called  his  men  around  him. 

They  had  not  come  through  unscathed.  Baedeker 
Bok  had  both  coat  and  shirt  sleeve  ripped  up,  while 
James  had  been  binding  the  flesh  wound  beneath.  A 
red  smear  along  the  cheek  showed  where  a  bullet  had 
narrowly  missed  Jarboe. 

By  this  time  the  street  was  crowded  with  interested 
and  excited  onlookers,  but  the  uniformed  police  had 
arrived  and  were  keeping  the  crowd  within  fire  lines. 

"Quick — before  the  engines  come!"  said  Norroy 
huskily.  "See — the  blaze  from  the  house  will  show 
you  what  you  missed  before.  There  were  four  books. 
Search  street  and  garden.    You'll  find  them." 

And  feverishly  he  himself  set  to  work  to  search. 
But  they  did  not  find  them — for  the  very  good  reason 
that  neither  of  them  was  there.  And  the  only  persons 
who  knew  of  their  whereabouts  were,  first,  that  afore- 
said girl  and  graybeard,  and,  second,  that  gawk  of  a 
boy. 

Despite  the  glare  from  the  burning  house,  Norroy's 
face  was  ashen  pale.     But  he  had  recovered  his  old 


AN  ENEMY  TO  THE  EMPEROR  115 

equanimity;  his  indifferent  manner  returned  to  aid 
him. 

"It's  not  the  first  time  my  plans  have  gone  awry,'* 
he  said  Hghtly.  "There  was  but  one  weak  link  in  my 
chain;  I  forgot  to  allow  for  what  would  happen  be- 
tween the  time  you  men  got  my  signal  and  the  time 
you  reached  the  street.  You  had  two  floors  to  descend, 
and  during  that  time  the  watchers  at  either  comer 
had  the  same  chance  that  you  had.  But  no!  They 
would  have  not  been  content  with  two  of  the  books. 
They  would  have  stayed  and  given  you  battle  for  all 
four.  Were  there  others  who  passed  by  on  this  side 
of  the  street?" 

"I  saw  a  girl  and  an  old  man,"  said  Baedeker  Bok, 
forgetting  his  injured  arm.  "They  went  that  way." 
He  pointed  due  west. 

"And  I  saw  a  young  chap  going  in  the  opposite 
direction.  Come  to  think  of  it,  he  was  looking  back," 
said  Ulric  Ulm.  "But  I  thought  it  was  because  of  the 
Catherine  wheel." 

He  looked  downcast.  He  felt  out  of  it.  He  had 
not  been  given  a  weapon,  while  Petersham  had;  and 
he  felt,  with  all  due  justice  to  Petersham,  that  he  was 
entitled  as  much  as  he  to  bear  arms  in  his  country's 
defense.  And  now  the  job  had  been  bungled,  after  all 
his  neat  chicanery,  of  which  he  was  inordinately  proud 
— yes,  and  despite  all  Norroy's  personal  risks. 

Norroy  turned  on  him  sharply. 

"I  thought  you  were  left  in  charge  of  Flora  Reyes?" 
he  asked  sharply. 


ii6  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

"Just  after  you  forced  her  to  write  that  letter  the 
stuff  you  put  in  her  coffee  sent  her  to  sleep,"  Ulm 
answered,  "and  I  locked  her  in  besides.  The  windows 
are  barred  and  the  door  has  a  bolt  outside.  You 
promised  her  you  would  set  her  free  if  the  letter 
worked,  anyhow." 

Norroy  cut  him  short 

"You  will  remember  hereafter  to  obey  orders  im- 
plicitly," he  commanded;  then,  relenting  at  the  sight 
of  Ulm's  face:  "I  don't  blame  you  for  wanting  to 
see  the  end  of  what  you  were  so  instrumental  in  begin- 
ning— only  it  isn't  the  end,  I'm  sorry  to  say.  There 
are  two  more  books  to  be  found  somewhere,  and  if 
you  want  to  help  in  the  finding  you  will  not  disobey 
again.  But  our  work  is  over  here,"  he  added,  as  the 
equipment  of  the  fire  department  came  thundering  up. 
"Nothing  more  will  be  saved  out  of  that  blaze.  Come 
to  the  club — all  of  you — we  will  have  a  doctor  in  to 
look  at  you,  Bok,  and  you,  Jarboe.  But  we  have  a 
busy  night  to-night  sending  messages  throughout  the 
Union — to  round  up  these  fellows  before  they  are 
warned."  He  tapped  the  two  books  that  remained. 
"And  I  cannot  spare  a  man.  To-morrow  the  search 
for  the  other  two  begins." 

So,  leaving  Van  Corlear  Place  affairs  in  charge  of 
Captain  Williams  of  the  department  of  justice,  the 
secret  agents  pushed  their  way  through  the  growing 
crowds  outside  the  fire  lines;  and,  with  one  glance 
behind  at  the  raging  furnace  that  had  once  been  the 


AN  ENEMY  TO  THE  EMPEROR  117 

seat  of  Teutonic  espionage  in  America,  Norroy  led 
the  way  to  the  nearest  taxicab  stand. 

"Delaroche  Street,  off  Stuyvesant  Square,"  he  or- 
dered, giving  the  St.  Anthony  Club  address,  "and 
quick!" 


# 


BOOK  THREE 
THE  BUREAU  OF  MISSING  ARTICLES 


CHAPTER  I 

In  Which  a  Black  Book  Falls  from  the  Sky: 
The  Narrative  of  Miss  Clovis  Clarke 

MUCH  has  been  explained  to  me  of  the  events 
that  follow;  events  that  I  must,  perforce, 
set  down  as  very  mysterious.  That  was  how 
they  happened  to  be  at  the  time,  and,  as  the  explanation 
did  not  come  until  some  time  later,  I  can  do  no  better 
than  begin  the  story  of  my  adventures  with  a  certain 
night  in  midwinter,  when  I  passed  through  Van  Cor- 
lear  Square,  and  incidentally  into  the  story  of  the 
Black  Book. 

Strangely  enough,  it  all  came  about  through  the 
buying  of  a  hat.  It  was  a  very  large  hat;  had  it  been 
otherwise  there  would  be  no  story.  It  was  not  cheap. 
You  should  have  heard  my  stepfather  when  I  an- 
nounced my  intention  of  expending  my  entire  weekly 
income  upon  so  futile  an  object.  Generally  I  give  it 
to  him — ^my  income,  I  mean,  if  that  word  is  not  mis- 
applied to  a  sum  so  small — and  he  spends  it  upon  his 
beloved  birds.  No  hats  or  such  trifling  gear  for  him. 
He  has  worn  the  same  hat  day  in,  day  out,  indoors 
and  outdoors,  until  it  seems  a  part  of  him. 

Down  on  Long  Island,  where  we  live,  I  have  but 

121 


133  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

one  chance  to  see  people  and  to  be  seen  by  them — 
Sunday  at  church.  And  for  a  month  of  Sundays  I 
had  remained  away  sooner  than  be  seen  in  a  straw 
hat;  no  matter  if  it  was  black  and  so  overladen  with 
velvet  bows  that  its  "basic  construction  was  not  likely 
to  be  discovered,"  as  stepfather  kindly  pointed  out. 

No,  I  would  have  a  new  one,  and  I  would  go  to 
New  York  to  get  it. 

So,  to  show  his  utter  inconsistency,  after  coming 
with  me  to  "protect"  me,  he  incontinently  abandoned 
me  to  do  my  shopping  alone.  He  had  decided  that 
for  an  adequate  inspection  of  the  new  birds  in  the 
Bronx  Zoo,  a  person  would  require  the  entire  after- 
noon, and,  as  his  cousin's  house  in  Van  Corlear  Square 
was  nearer  there  than  any  of  my  shopping  places — 
being  indeed  north  of  Central  Park,  a  queer,  old- 
fashioned  nook  that  New  Yorkers  seem  to  have  for- 
gotten— I  was  to  meet  him  there,  and  doubtless  we 
would  be  invited  to  dinner,  "which  would  save  some- 
thing," he  reflected,  a  bird's-eye  view  of  the  day's 
"unnecessary  expenditures"  having  been  again  ex- 
hibited for  my  edification. 

After  this,  you  may  well  believe  there  was  little 
conversation  between  us  at  dinner.  But  it  does  no 
good  to  be  angry  with  him ;  he  is  so  utterly  indifferent 
to  most  everything.  But  on  this  particular  night  he 
was  unusually  absent-minded.  At  the  bird  house  he 
had  met  a  brother  fancier  who  had  given  him  two 
heron's  eggs  to  hatch.  The  other  had  heard  of  step- 
father's collection  of  storklike  creatures,  and  claimed 
that  his  own  specimen  of  female  heron  was  utterly 


THE  BUREAU  OF  MISSING  ARTICLES    123 

unlike  any  other  and  that  these  eggs  would  hatch  out 
more  of  the  same  variety. 

My  stepfather  was  anxious  to  get  the  eggs  into  one 
of  our  own  heron's  nests;  for,  although  he  carried 
them  in  a  cotton- wadded,  carefully  sealed  case  and 
next  to  his  flannel  shirt,  where  they  received  body 
warmth,  he  feared  the  alteration  of  nesting  conditions 
was  enough  to  interfere  with  their  hatching.  So, 
sooner  than  politeness  warranted,  considering  we  had 
invited  ourselves  to  sup,  he  bundled  me  into  my  wraps 
and  was  steering  me  toward  the  subway. 

And  it  was  then,  as  we  passed  through  Van  Corlear 
Square,  that  my  hat  and  I,  and  he  and  his  heron  eggs, 
entered  into  the  story  of  the  Black  Book. 

The  square  was  dark  and  deserted.  I  should  im- 
agine that  its  inhabitants  adhere  to  gas  for  lighting 
purposes  and  that  their  living  rooms  are  mostly  at 
the  back  of  their  houses,  for  only  the  faintest  illumina- 
tion, the  sort  that  comes  when  lights  are  turned  low, 
percolated  through  the  old-fashioned  fan-lights  or 
through  the  curtained  glass  panels  at  the  sides  of  their 
inner  doorways.  The  rooms  themselves  were  either 
unlighted  or  else  heavily  shuttered  or  curtained.  It 
was  a  very  dark  street  indeed,  and  just  the  sort  of  a 
place  I  would  pick  out  for  a  holdup  were  I  a  highway 
robber. 

I  said  as  much  to  stepfather,  who  responded  sharply 
that  the  head  under  it  was  as  foolish  as  the  hat  over 
it.  I  could  see  him  feeling  for  his  precious  heron  eggs. 
As  if  any  one  would  wish  to  steal  them! 

Just  as  he  spoke,  however,  something  strange  hap- 


124  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

pened.  We  were  only  a  few  feet  away  when  a  little 
bit  of  fireworks  fell  in  the  middle  of  the  street  in  front 
of  us  and  began  to  sputter  away,  turning  around  and 
around.  I  stopped  for  a  moment  to  watch  it.  And 
then  I  saw  a  man  coming  down  the  street  toward  us. 
Just  as  he  came  up  I  felt  something  strike  my  hat. 
I  put  up  my  hand.  Immediately  something  fell  to  the 
ground  directly  in  front  of  the  approaching  man,  who, 
now  that  he  was  nearer  and  had  the  light  of  a  street 
lamp  full  on  him,  I  saw  was  a  very  young  man  in  a 
shabby  overcoat. 

He  stooped  and  picked  something  up  just  as  I  bent 
over  to  see  what  had  fallen  to  the  ground.  As  I  passed 
him — for  now  my  stepfather  tugged  at  my  sleeve — 
I  saw  that  he  had  opened  what  looked  like  a  book, 
and  I  saw  thin  sheets  of  paper  fluttering  in  the  wind, 
which  had  suddenly  become  very  cold  and  fierce.  As 
I  turned  my  head  to  look  behind  me,  he  ran  toward 
the  comer  we  had  left  behind. 

Back  in  the  center  of  the  street,  the  little  firework 
still  sputtered  and  sent  off  its  sparks.  Just  as  we 
were  about  to  turn  the  corner,  another  queer  thing 
occurred.  The  door  to  one  of  the  houses  on  the 
opposite  side  was  flung  violently  open,  and  man  after 
man  streamed  out  and  toward  where  the  pinwheel  was 
now  expiring. 

I  came  to  a  dead  stop,  for  I  saw,  in  that  little  area 
lighted  up  by  the  street  lamp,  that  several  of  the  men 
had  plumped  down  on  hands  and  knees,  while  others 
were  running  about,  'twixt  curb  and  curb,  all  seeming 
to  be  hunting  for  something;  while  the  man  who  had 


THE  BUREAU  OF  MISSING  ARTICLES    125 

picked  up  the  book  was  just  disappearing  around  the 
far  comer. 

But  my  movement  as  if  to  make  my  way  back  again 
was  anticipated  by  my  stepfather,  who  gripped  me 
none  too  gently,  I  can  assure  you. 

"But  I  want  to  tell  them  who  has  what  they're  hunt- 
ing for,"  I  urged. 

"You  come  along  with  me,"  he  insisted.  As  I  went 
I  shivered.  For,  all  unknown  to  me,  there  had  been 
a  man  standing  in  the  shadows  so  near  to  me  I  could 
have  touched  him  with  my  hand  had  I  reached  it  out. 
But  I  did  not  notice  him  until  I  looked  around  for 
the  last  time  before  turning  into  the  next  street,  and 
I  saw  him  twist  his  head  around  from  looking  at  the 
men  farther  down  the  street  to  turn  and  glare  after 
me. 

Again  I  stood  still  for  a  second,  but  this  time  from 
fright.  The  man's  manner  was  malevolent  enough  at 
first.  As  he  continued  to  stare,  it  became  absolutely 
menacing.  Seeming  to  make  up  his  mind  with  an 
effort,  he  turned  again  toward  the  center  of  the  street. 

It  needed  no  tug  at  my  arm  this  time.  A  taxicab, 
with  its  flag  up,  was  passing  slowly.  Fearful  any  sec- 
ond that  the  man  might  follow,  I  stopped  the  cab  and 
pushed  my  stepfather  into  it. 

As  the  door  slammed  upon  us,  the  man  at  the  comer 
turned  suddenly.  Looking  through  the  little  window 
at  the  back,  I  saw  him  running  like  a  deer  after  us. 
But  as  I  learned  later,  this  was  only  until  the  taxi 
passed  by  another  street  lamp  and  he  could  discover 
its  number.    Strange  a  thing  so  obvious  did  not  occur 


126  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

to  me  at  the  time;  for,  when  I  lookecf  again,  he  had 
turned  and  was  running  back  in  the  direction  from 
which  he  had  come. 

To  all  this  part  of  my  adventure  my  stepfather  was 
entirely  oblivious.  He  was  too  busy  making  sure  that 
his  eggs  were  intact  to  say  much  at  first,  but  when  he 
did  it  was  to  inquire  with  some  acidity  as  to  why 
I  had  taken  the  taxi,  and  who,  did  I  think,  was  to  pay 
for  it? 

"1  am,"  I  assured  him  quickly  to  get  his  mind  on 
more  important  things.  Then:  "What  does  it  all 
mean?  What  happened  back  there?  What  do  you 
think?" 

**My  curiosity  in  such  matters  is  oversatisfied  every 
morning  when  I  pick  up  the  newspaper  only  to  find  it 
full  of  robberies  and  murders,"  he  answered  shortly. 
**I  told  you  New  York  was  no  place  for  you  to  come 
alone.    Where  would  you  have  been  without  me?" 

"But  the  book?"  I  persisted,  as  I  raised  my  hands 
to  my  hair  and  began  patting  it,  as  a  woman  always 
does  after  excitement  of  any  sort  "But  the  book, 
father?" 

"What's  that?"  he  asked  suddenly 

For,  in  arranging  my  hair,  I  had  bowed  my  head, 
and,  the  hat  being  slanted,  something  fell  forward  and 
almost  at  his  feet. 

I  had  felt  it  fall,  and  I  now  leaned  over  and  picked 
it  up. 

"Why,  this  is  the  book !"  I  cried  in  genuine  alarm. 

It  seemed  incredible;  but  what  I  held  in  my  hand 
was  identical  in  size,  contour,  and  general  appearance 


THE  BUREAU  OF  MISSING  ARTICLES    127 

— it  even  had  the  same  sort  of  thin,  tcugh  paper — 
with  that  book  the  youth  in  the  shabby  overcoat  had 
snatched  up  from  the  sidewalk. 

It  was  very  light,  and  had  fallen  on  my  new  big 
hat  and  rested  there  without  my  knowing  it. 

"It  is!    It's  the  same  book!"  I  said  excitedly.* 
♦  Miss  Clarke's  narrative  is  continued  in  Chapter  IV. 


CHAPTER  II 
Tells  How  Her  Enemies  Plotted  Underground 

THERE  were  many  people  in  New  York  during 
the  last  decade  to  whom  what  we  are  accustomed 
to  call  melodrama  is  ordinary,  ever}'day,  com- 
monplace incident.  This  could  not  be  better  proven 
than  by  the  indubitable  fact  that  when  a  knock  came 
on  the  floor  directly  under  the  feet  of  Henricus 
Voegel — whose  "palatial  m.ansion"  on  Riverside 
Drive  was  one  of  the  sights  the  barker  never  failed 
to  point  out  during  the  days  before  the  great  war. 
Mr.  Voegel  arose,  and,  with  no  more  excitement 
than  if  the  knock  had  come  in  the  usual  way  by  the 
door,  lifted  the  electric  lamp  to  the  mantel  over  the 
fireplace.  He  then  pushed  table  and  easy-chair  of  light 
wicker  to  more  remote  sections  of  the  room,  and  re- 
vealing a  section  of  the  flooring  by  rolling  away  part 
of  a  green  fiber  rug,  brought  his  heel  down  sharply: 
once,  twice;  once,  twice,  thrice,  once  twice;  once. 
Whereupon,  the  seemingly  seamless  section  of  floor 
was  propelled  upward  by  a  pair  of  hands. 

A  second  later  rug,  chair,  table,  and  lamp,  were  in 
their  proper  places,  and  Mr.  Voegel's  visitor  was  free- 
iing  himself  from  grime  in  a  little  lavatory.     He  re- 

128 


THE  BUREAU  OF  MISSING  ARTICLES    129 

turned  to  the  larger  room  busily  whisking  off  cobwebs 
from  his  coat.  Had  Miss  Clovis  Clarke  been  there  to 
see,  she  would  have  recognized  in  him  the  man  in  the 
shadows  whose  threatening  attitude  hurried  her  into 
that  passing  taxicab. 

His  face  was  paler  than  most,  and  the  blue-black 
lines,  left  even  after  the  closest  shaving,  were  more 
pronounced  than  the  average  American's.  Yorke  Nor- 
roy  would  have  said  instantly  that  this  man  had  worn 
a  beard  until  very  recently. 

His  eyes  were  lined  in  black,  too — circled  rather; 
and  their  stare  was  strained  rather  than  startling.  He 
sat  down  suddenly  opposite  Voegel,  and  drew  a  long, 
deep  breath.  Then  he  put  both  palms  to  the  sides  of 
his  aching  head. 

Henricus  Voegel  was  growing  more  and  more 
alarmed,  first  by  the  appearance,  now  by  the  actions, 
of  his  midnight  visitor.  That  worthy,  corpulent  of 
habit  and  conservative  by  nature,  had  known  for  some 
time  that  he  was  apt  to  be  called  upon  to  do  his  duty 
by  the  league  to  which  he  owed  allegiance — to  which 
also,  were  the  truth  told  of  many  more  than  Voegel, 
he  owed  in  no  small  measure  his  financial  success. 

It  had  been  years  since  he  first  joined  it,  but  even 
in  those  peaceful  days  Germany  had  been  preparing 
for  war.  And  to  the  credit  of  the  brains  of  those 
behind  her  organization  it  had  been  recognized  that 
it  was  best  to  put  under  obligation  in  peace  times  those 
from  whom  they  expected  assistance  when  their  armies 
were  in  the  field.  So  Henricus  Voegel  had  been  helped 
to  place  and  financial  power  by  the  patronage  of  those 


I30  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

others  also  of  the  league,  who,  in  his  turn,  he  had 
patronized.  With  him  and  those  like  him  in  other 
cities  had  been  placed  those  gigantic  orders  that  the 
German  government  controlled.  His  credits  had  been 
extended  by  these  same  energetic  offices,  and  altogether 
a  millionaire  had  been  made  out  of  one  who  had 
originally  hoped  to  be  no  more  than  an  ordinarily 
successful  wholesaler. 

Now  had  come  the  time  to  pay. 

He  had  known  for  some  time  that  the  day  was  at 
hand  when  something  would  be  expected  of  him.  For 
it  was  plain  that,  despite  his  efforts  and  those  of  thou- 
sands like  him,  America  would  soon  be  in  the  war. 
It  was  then  that  he  had  been  told  to  close  his  city 
home  for  the  summer,  leaving  not  even  a  caretaker. 
During  his  absence  a  corps  of  workingmen,  controlled 
by  the  league,  had  been  installed  in  the  house  to  con- 
struct this  suite  of  chambers  beneath  the  basement  and 
cellar  of  his  house  and  to  connect  it  up  with  that  sub- 
terranean system  upon  which  the  league  counted  to  pro- 
tect them  even  in  case  of  the  discovery  of  any  one  of 
their  strongholds. 

'  Which  explains  why  Henricus  Voegel  was  on  hand, 
why  a  bright  fire  burned  on  the  hearth,  comforting  to 
one  who  had  been  clambering  about  in  chilly,  clammy 
cellarways,  and  also  why  Max  Spiegel  now  appeared 
in  the  snowy-white  jacket  of  a  waiter  and  gave  the 
newcomer  the  military  salute,  followed  by  the  sign 
adopted  to  identify  the  leaguers. 

"What  will  mein  herr  have?  There  is  a  bar,  as 
ntein  herr  knows,  no  doubt,  and  it  is  completely  fur- 


THE  BUREAU  OF  MISSING  ARTICLES    131 

nished?  Something  warming?  Schnapps?  Or  coffee? 
Or  would  the  inein  herr  have  food  ?" 

The  man  gave  his  order,  adding  shortly  that  Max 
was  to  bring  the  bottle.  When  it  came  he  poured  him- 
self out  in  quick  succession  three  small  glasses  of  Hol- 
lands, which  he  drank  neat,  staring  gloomily  in  the 
fire  the  while.  Spiegel  eyed  him  impassively.  It  was 
not  for  an  underling  to  show  signs  of  surprise  at 
anything  an  officer  chose  to  do.  And  by  his  bearing, 
as  well  as  by  his  short,  close-clipped  speech,  this 
stranger  was  no  less.  Even  the  master,  Voegel,  he 
treated  with  a  certain  careless  offhandedness,  returning 
no  answer  to  a  twice-repeated  question. 

The  spirits  seemed  to  take  effect,  for  his  hands 
ceased  to  tremble,  and  when  he  turned  to  Voegel  the 
muscles  of  his  face  no  longer  twitched. 

"The  worst  has  happened,"  he  suddenly  answered 
as  Voegel  prepared  to  ask  again.  "Our  central  office 
at  Van  Corlear  Square  has  been  destroyed.  Somehow 
they  discovered  it,  and  we  were  forced  to  fire  it  and 
blow  up  the  underground  communications  after  us. 
I  was  not  in  the  house  when  it  happened,  but  was  on 
watch  at  one  corner,  in  case  of  suspicious-looking 
vistors  or  gatherings,  to  give  the  alarm.  Krafft,  my 
comrade,  watched  at  the  other  corner.  But,  despite 
all  our  precautions,  we  have  been  outwitted.  Norroy, 
the  dean  of  the  American  secret  agents,  the  man  we 
thought  we  had  under  surveillance,  just  as  we  thought 
we  had  him  in  our  hands  once  before,  somehow  se- 
cured entrance  to  the  house  and  got  possession  of  the 


133  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

books  containing  the  names  of  all  implicated  in  the 
league " 

"The  Black  Book?"  asked  Voegel,  his  hands  and 
face  trembling  and  twitching.  "The  four  little  books 
in  the  black  case  ?  Why,  my  name  was  written  there. 
Mine  and " 

*T  said  that  a  company  of  men  had  hidden  them- 
selves in  a  house  opposite.  These  men  secured  the 
other  two  books,  were  joined  by  their  chief,  this  Nor- 
roy,  who  managed  to  escape  from  the  house — God 
alone  knows  how — ^and  began  to  attack  to  gain  en- 
trance. They  were  joined  by  others — policemen  of 
the  bomb  squad  and  department-of-justice  men.  Our 
people  held  them  off  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  or 
more — ^no  doubt  to  remove  those  files  and  map  cases 
containing  papers  of  the  greatest  importance.  Then 
they  retreated  by  the  underground  way  after  firing 
the  house  and  blowing  up  the  secret  passage  beneath. 
Have  I  not  told  you  this  once  ?" 

"But  the  Black  Book?"  entreated  Voegel,  his  eyes 
anguished.  "If  the  names  of  all  are  thus  betrayed, 
where  then  is  our  league  ?  Where  am  I  ?  Where  is — 
any  one?    Cannot  they  be  recovered,  cannot " 

"I  do  not  know,"  answered  Muhlenberg,  eyeing  the 
other  coldly.  "I  have  done  my  best.  I  know  where 
three  of  the  books  were  taken — two  to  an  address  on 
Delaroche  Street,  which  is  the  headquarters  of  this 
Norroy  and  his  agents;  that  much  I  know  because 
after  the  assault  I  kept  edging  near  them  in  the  crowd. 
Whether  these  can  be  recovered  depends  upon  the 
number  of  leaguers  who  can  be  found  to  sacrifice  them- 


THE  BUREAU  OF  MISSING  ARTICLES     133 

selves  in  an  attack.  As  for  the  third  book,  I  should 
be  able  to  secure  it  to-night  or  to-morrow.  And  we 
will  hope  that  Krafft  is  no  less  successful  with  regard 
to  his  quarry.  Take  heart,  Herr  Voegel" — but  he 
spoke  in  iciest  tones — "it  is  even  odds  that  your  name 
is  in  one  of  the  books  not  already  secured.  But" — 
he  broke  off  abruptly  at  the  sound  of  knocks  on  the 
floor,  repeated  in  the  same  code  he  had  used — "here, 
doubtless,  is  some  one  who  may  be  able  to  explain. 
The  orders  given  out  a  month  or  more  ago,  when 
first  this  Norroy  came  into  conflict  with  us,  were  that, 
in  case  of  disaster  in  Van  Corlear  Square,  all  were 
to  repair  here  as  soon  as  possible.    The  documents  and 

maps  were  carried  elsewhere " 

While  he  spoke  he  had  been  assisting  Voegel  to 
remove  the  various  impediments  in  the  way  of  the 
new  arrival,  who  proved  to  be  a  young  man  attired 
in  the  extreme  of  conservative  fashion.  He  looked 
the  young  American  professional  man  of  the  best 
antecedents  and  highest  prospects.  He  was  conspicu- 
ous to  the  unskillful  eye  only  by  a  peculiar  dead  white- 
ness of  skin  and  excessive  blackness  of  hair.  His 
eyes  seemed  black,  too,  and  their  pupils  were  narrowed 
to  pin  points,  a  fact  that  would  have  informed  a 
medical  man  as  to  something  inimical  to  the  aforesaid 
prospects.  He  would  have  been  recognized  by  Yorke 
Norroy  as  the  one  by  whom  he  had  been  decoyed 
almost  to  his  death,  and  not  more  than  a  few  months 
before.  Also  he  would  have  been  known  by  a  certain 
Charles  Petersham,  until  lately  draftsman  at  the  New 
York  Navy  Yard, 


134  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

"Knatchbull— good !"  said  Muhlenberg.  "Good  I 
Good !"  And  he  rubbed  his  hands.  "Where  is  Heinz- 
mann?    What  has  become  of  the  others?" 

He  continued  to  volley  questions  at  the  newcomer, 
who,  making  no  attempt  to  answer  them,  sank  down 
in  an  easy-chair  near  the  fire  and  yawned  prodigiously. 
Presently  he  noted  the  lavatory  door  partly  open,  and 
disappeared  behind  it,  feeling  for  some  article  he  car- 
ried in  a  hip  pocket.  This  action,  taken  in  connection 
with  the  yawn,  would  have  completely  verified  the 
inimical  opinion  formed  of  him  by  any  observing 
physician. 

Voegel,  to  whom  the  newcomer  was  a  stranger,  and 
who  had  pricked  up  his  ears  at  the  sound  of  his  singular 
name,  gazed  suspiciously  after  him. 

"Who  is  he?" 

Muhlenberg's  look  was  one  of  mingled  contempt 
and  forced  admiration.  "Knatchbull  is  the  name  he 
uses,"  he  answered  slowly.  "And  then,  paraphrasing 
an  old  song:  *As  for  his  nation,  and  also  his  salvation 
— well,  he  hasn't  got  either.'  He's  the  one  man  I 
ever  met  whom  God  forgot  to  give  a  conscience  to. 
Now  I'm  a  German,  and  so  are  you,  and  we're  fighting 
for  our  country,  just  as  much  here  as  if  we  were  on 
the  battlefield.  In  fact,  more  so,  for  we  get  none  of 
the  glory  and  take  all  of  the  risks " 

Voegel  shuddered  perceptibly.  "Can  they — er — 
hang  us  if — if " 

"Not  only  can,  but  will.  Can  you  ask — after  that 
explosion  last  week  at  Indian  Head  that  killed  twenty 


THE  BUREAU  OF  MISSING  ARTICLES    135 

and  destroyed  twenty  times  that  many  thousand  dol- 
lars'worth  of  property?    After " 

He  enumerated  other  instances,  each  of  which  went 
further  to  reduce  his  listener  to  partial  paralysis.  Then 
he  broke  off  suddenly  to  take  up  his  first  theme: 

"As  I  say,  we're  Germans  fighting  for  Germany, 
but  he's — I  believe  he  plans  and  plots  and  perpetrates 
out  of  pure  perversity;  out  of  general  cussedness  as 
these  Americans  say.    Hush !    He's  coming  back " 

Whatever  it  was  had  happened  behind  the  door  of 
the  lavatory — and  that  same  wise  physician  would  have 
told  you  the  secret  lay  hidden  in  the  little  black  box 
its  owner  was  now  restoring  to  his  hip  pocket — it  had 
had  an  effect  beside  which  the  ordinary  imbibing  of 
the  superlative  dram  drinker  pales  its  ineffectual  fires. 
Knatchbull's  eyes  were  bright,  animallike ;  his  gestures 
quick,  impatient ;  he  seemed  to  surge  and  seethe  within 
himself.  His  whole  being  seemed  in  much  the  same 
condition  as  that  of  a  high-powered  motor  car  left 
at  a  curb  with  both  spark  and  throttle  advanced. 

Voegel,  the  man  of  peace,  looked  once  and  shud- 
dered; then  his  eyes  sought  other  employment,  and, 
during  the  continuation  of  the  colloquy,  persistently 
avoided  those  of  the  last  arrival.  Muhlenberg,  how- 
ever, although  his  uneasy  bearing  resembled  that  of  a 
keeper  in  a  cage  with  a  panther  only  partially  tame, 
brought  his  fears  to  brook  with  an  effort,  and  explained 
the  affair  of  the  missing  books. 

Knatchbull  heard  him  out  in  silence. 

*'l  was  hoping  for  something  of  the  sort,"  he  said, 
his  eyes  snapping.     *T  told  Heinzmann  that  you  and 


136  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

Krafft  would  be  sure  to  know  something.  Now  we 
have  a  very  short  time  left  to  act.  I  am  temporarily 
in  charge.  This  Norroy  brained  Heinzmann,  and  he 
is  in  a  bad  way;  only  partially  conscious  when  I  left 
him.  He  is  at  the  old  house  a  block  away  from  Van 
Corlear  Square — with  the  files.  Doctor  Gebhart  is 
looking  after  him.  The  passages  between  the  houses 
are  entirely  destroyed,  but  by  to-morrow  morning  the 
stuff  will  be  brought  here.  Sooner  or  later  the  de- 
stroyed passages  will  be  burrowed  into,  and  the  con- 
nection between  the  houses  discovered.  We  will  an- 
ticipate that  by  abandoning  the  house.  Hereafter  this 
will  be  our  headquarters.  With  this  country  on  the 
verge  of  war,  mysterious  houses  will  not  be  tolerated. 
But  who  will  suspect  that  we  meet  at  the  residence  of 
that  pillar  of  probity,  Henricus  Voegel?" 

The  man  thus  apostrophized  shifted  uneasily  in  his 
seat,  and,  without  looking  up,  addressed  himself  ap- 
parently to  the  atmosphere. 

"Many  will  suspect,  if  those  books  are  not  re- 
covered," he  muttered  heavily.  "How  do  you  know 
that  at  this  moment  it  is  not  common  knowledge  that 
I  am  of  your  league?    Two  of  those  books " 

The  eyes  of  Knatchbull  became  brighter  than  before ; 
his  teeth  snapped  together;  he  shot  forward  his  right 
hand  and  threw  out  the  fingers  of  it,  making  sharp, 
cracking  noises. 

"But  do  we  know  where  they  are?"  he  asked  in 
triumph.  "To  recover  those  books  is  doubtless  im- 
possible; they  have  taken  every  precaution  against 
their  recovery  I  make  no  doubt.     But  it  needs  only 


THE  BUREAU  OF  MISSING  ARTICLES    137 

one  man  with  courage  to  destroy  them — yes,  and  with 
them  the  men  who  have  read  the  names  therein,  and 
also  any  notes  they  may  have  taken.  In  fact,  the  whole 
building — perhaps  the  block " 

He  stood  erect,  a  smiling,  sinister  figure.  Then  he 
made  a  movement  which  the  horrified  Muhlenberg 
misinterpreted  as  merely  symbolic;  so  KnatchbuU 
pushed  him  impatiently  aside,  and  went  through  the 
business  necessar}-^  to  expose  the  trapdoor. 

"I  came  first  to  make  sure  all  was  well.  The  others 
are  waiting,  each  half  a  block  apart.  One  should  be 
near  enough  to  hear." 

He  stamped  with  his  foot  in  the  prescribed  code. 
After  a  minute  or  so  of  waiting  he  repeated  his  move- 
ments. Slowly  the  trapdoor  arose  and  another  man 
appeared.  From  farther  away  they  heard  the  sound 
of  scampering;  then,  at  brief  intervals,  came  a  second 
man,  a  third,  a  fourth,  until  all  whom  KnatchbuU 
expected  had  arrived. 

While  he  awaited  them  he  again  retired  into  the 
seclusion  of  the  lavatory,  to  reenter  for  the  second 
time,  replacing  the  black  box  in  his  pocket,  his  eyes 
shining  more  viciously  than  before. 

He  wasted  no  time,  waving  away  the  importuning 
Max  Spiegel  with  his  offers  of  refreshment. 

"No  time  for  that  now,"  he  said  brusquely;  "but 
wait" — as  Max  was  about  to  retire — "you  are  one 
of  the  league.  It  is  only  right  you  should  remain  and 
listen  and  take  your  chance  with  the  others." 

Spiegel  saluted  and  withdrew  to  the  rear.  Some 
seated,  more  standing,  the  .seventeen  men,  all  who  re- 


138  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

mained  of  the  Van  Corlear  Square  garrison,  listened 
with  troubled  faces.  KnatchbuU  seemed  the  only  one 
thoroughly  to  enjoy  what  he  was  about,  his  shining 
eyes  like  those  of  some  snake  making  ready  to  strike. 

When  he  had  concluded,  his  gusto  was  even  more 
evident  than  before,  especially  when  he  saw  that 
Voegel,  of  whose  distaste  for  him  he  had  become  fully 
aware,  had  covered  his  eyes  with  one  hand  while  he 
steadied  himself  by  gripping  a  chair  with  the  other. 
KnatchbuU  prolonged  the  man's  agony  as  long  as  he 
dared. 

"All  will  draw  lots  except  two.  One  we  cannot 
spare  because  the  league  needs  his  brain;  the  other 
because  the  league  needs  his  name.  I  refer  to  myself 
and  to  Herr  Voegel.    The  others " 

He  addressed  Spiegel.  "Markers,"  he  said  briefly. 
Max  looked  at  him  with  dazed  eyes.  "Chips,"  ex- 
plained KnatchbuU.  A  box  of  them  was  produced — 
red,  white,  blue.  Of  the  last  KnatchbuU  selected  four- 
teen to  which  he  added  a  single  white  one. 

"A  hat !"  he  commanded  briefly.    "A  stiff  hat !" 

The  nearest  gave  him  a  black  derby.  He  tossed  the 
chips  into  it,  covered  the  top  of  it  with  the  book  Voegel 
had  been  reading  before  Muhlenberg  came,  and  rattled 
the  chips  vigorously  within. 

"Form  in  line,"  he  said,  "approach  one  at  a  time, 
thrust  in  your  hand  and  take  one.  Are  you  ready? 
Good!" 

Without  warning  he  snapped  off  the  light  in  the 
electric  lamp.  Now  that  they  had  the  kindly  darkness 
to  screen  their  emotion,  the  sound  of  heavy  breathing 


THE  BUREAU  OF  MISSING  ARTICLES    139 

predominated,  varied  by  great  gasps  as  if  some  were 
unable  momentarily  to  breathe  at  all.  Voegel  noted 
dully  that  the  gasps  came  always  when  one  of  the 
dim  figures  approached  the  standing  Knatchbull  and 
a  clicking  sound  followed  as  the  chips  were  disturbed. 
Following  the  gasp  came  a  gulp  as  the  men  passed 
on  by  Voegel  and  into  the  outer  shadows.  And  as 
each  passed,  Knatchbull  called  out  a  number. 

As  suddenly  as  it  had  been  snapped  off,  the  light 
was  now  snapped  on,  and  for  an  instant  the  room  was 
full  of  staring  men,  each  bent  over  a  colored  chip 
flat  in  the  palm  of  his  hand.  One  only  was  distinguished 
from  the  others.  He,  forgetful  of  discipline  and  of 
his  low  degree,  had  sunk  down  and  remained  seated 
in  the  presence  of  his  superiors.  It  was  the  hitherto 
elate  Max  Spiegel,  and  his  newly  donned  white  jacket 
was  no  whiter  than  his  dead  whiteness  of  face, 

Knatchbull  strode  across  to  him.  "You?"  he  ques- 
tioned. "Good !  You  are  lucky  to  be  able  to  serve  the 
fatherland  so  soon.  Take  charge  of  him,  you — Hart- 
mann " 

He  jerked  his  finger  toward  a  bowed-shouldered 
man  with  steel  frames  to  his  spectacles,  a  man  who 
looked  like  an  ancient  journeyman,  save  for  the  fierce 
fanaticism  of  his  face.  He,  Hartmann,  was  the  bomb 
expert,  the  maker  of  the  infernal  clockwork,  who 
handled  the  "nitro"  and  "picric"  as  mothers  handle 
their  babies. 

"Take  him  to  the  old  house.  Get  the  materials 
together  as  fast  as  you  can.  No  splitting  hairs,  no 
timing.     The  man  who  uses  this  will  have  to  go  up 


I40  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

with  his  bomb.  He  won't  have  a  chance  to  plant  it — 
if  I  know  my  Norroy.  He's  guarded  against  that. 
But  no  man  can  be  guarded  against  another  who  means 
to  lose  his  life  along  with  his  enemies." 

He  shook  the  limp  hand  of  the  inert  man.  "Off  with 
you  now !    Remember,  it  is  for  the  fatherland." 

Was  it  possible  that  Knatchbull  dared  to  sneer  even 
if  it  were  ever  so  faintly  ?  Muhlenberg's  hand  clenched 
as  he  stared  at  him.  But  there  was  no  sign  of  a  sneer; 
Knatchbull's  face  was  saturnine  as  he  added : 

"Remember,  too,  not  to  fail.  For  it  is  better  to 
die  for  one's  fatherland  than  to  die  at  the  hands  of 
one's  brothers.  Hurry  along,  Hartmann.  Every 
minute  wasted  now  is  full  of  peril  for  the  five  thousand 
whose  names  are  in  those  two  books.  Remember  that, 
my  friend,"  he  said  as  Spiegel  stood  halfway  down 
the  ladder  that  led  below,  "remember  that  your  sac- 
rifice saves  five  thousand.    Auf  wiedersehen." 

The  trapdoor  closed.  "Now,  my  friend,"  said 
Knatchbull  to  Muhlenberg,  "we  will  draw  lots  for 
five  men  to  accompany  you  to  Long  Island  to  secure 
the  second  book.  Five  I  shall  keep  for  Krafft,  five  for 
myself.  The  markers  again — ah,  I  had  forgotten  our 
friend  was  gone ! — hand  them  over,  Hartleben " 

And  in  silence  the  lots  were  drawn  as  to  which  were 
to  become  the  active  enemies  of  Miss  Clovis  Clarke. 


CHAPTER  III 

In  Which  Our  Hero  Hears  Our  Heroine's  Voice 
Over  the  Wire  and  Rushes  to  Her  Assistance 

IN  the  topmost  tower  of  the  tallest  building  north 
of  lower  Broadway,  above  the  illuminated  dial 
of  that  clock  that  overlooks  the  entire  city,  there 
was  enacted,  even  though  it  was  past  midnight,  such 
a  scene  of  activity  that  one  suddenly  awakened  to  gaze 
upon  it  might  have  been  pardoned  for  believing  it  must 
be  midday. 

First,  there  were  the  telephone  men  who  were  run- 
ning wires  from  the  one  occupied  room  in  the  tower 
where  the  aids  and  assistants  of  Mr.  Yorke  Norroy 
pored  over  certain  pages  of  thin,  tough  paper. 

The  two  thin  volumes  which  contained  the  pages 
were  half  of  the  menacing  "Black  Book"  that  had  kept 
Yorke  Norroy  awake  for  a  month  or  more,  and  written 
therein  were  the  names  of  half  of  those  among 
America's  bitterest  enemies  who  dwelt  within  her  own 
threshold. 

There  were  a  number  of  flat-topped  desks  in  the 
room — one  for  each  corner,  each,  save  the  vacant  one 
in  the  center,  where  Yorke  Norroy  would  sit  when 
he  returned  to  the  scene  his  orders  had  wrought, 
equipped  to  accommodate  two  men.    Here,  facing  one 

141 


142  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

another,  adapting  for  each  special  purpose  an  original 
telegram  taken  from  Norroy's  dictation,  or  copying 
names  from  the  books,  sat  Baedeker  Bok  and  Ivison 
James,  Stanley  Jarboe  and  Charles  Petersham,  Carson 
Huntley  and  Ulric  Ulm — all  those  of  the  underground 
corps  who  had  played  parts  prominent  or  otherwise 
in  the  capture  of  the  Black  Book — Huntley  himself 
directing  their  various  endeavors  and  from  time  to 
time  casting  anxious  glances  toward  the  door  by  which 
the  chief  would  return. 

Besides  the  telephone  linemen,  running  their  wires 
from  this  room  to  the  others  in  the  suite,  and  con- 
necting them  up  with  others  from  below,  were  the 
employees  of  the  telegraph  company,  employed  on  a 
somewhat  similar  business.  While  ever  and  anon  the 
servants  from  the  St.  Anthony  Club  staggered  up  the 
spiral  stairway  that  began  where  the  elevator  left  off; 
some  their  arms  full  of  manuscript  records  brought 
from  the  club,  others  lugging  favorite  ornaments, 
smaller  pieces  of  furniture,  rugs,  tapestries,  and  other 
fixings — most  of  the  articles  that  had  made  up  the 
furnishing  and  garniture  of  that  "private  library"  at 
the  St.  Anthony  Club,  which  was  in  reality  Yorke 
Norroy's  private  office.  Here,  all  of  the  important 
records  had  been  kept  and  most  of  the  important  busi- 
ness transacted. 

It  had  required  little  more  than  Norroy's  ordinary 
foresight — which,  needless  to  say,  was  equal  to  many 
times  that  of  the  average  man — to  realize  that  this, 
or  indeed  any  part  of  the  club,  was  no  safe  place  to 
transact  business  now  that  he  and  his  corps  held  the 


THE  BUREAU  OF  MISSING  ARTICLES    143 

key  to  German  espionage  in  America.  That  what  he 
had  expected  had  come  to  pass  was  evident  from  the 
fact  that,  on  the  previous  day,  he  had  leased  the  tower 
of  the  highest  building  north  of  lower  Broadway. 

"For,"  he  had  explained  smilingly  to-night  to  his 
subordinates,  "if  they  are  going  underground  we  must 
go  as  far  in  the  opposite  direction  as  we  can.  We 
must  have  a  place  where  we  cannot  be  surprised,  where 
we  hold  the  approaches,  so  to  speak." 

It  was  to  this  end  that  two  agents,  borrowed  for 
the  night  from  the  department  of  justice,  patrolled 
the  platform  where  the  elevator  service  ended,  demand- 
ing identification  from  each  man  who  would  pass  up- 
ward; while  on  Delaroche  Street  a  detail  of  bomb 
squadsmen  protected  the  St.  Anthony  Club,  on  the 
lookout  for  any  hostile  invaders  who  might  fall  into 
their  hands — a  fact  of  which  poor  Max  Spiegel  was 
unaware  as  he  approached  that  building. 

But  long  before  Spiegel  came  the  telephones  had 
been  set  up  in  the  tower  and  the  telegraph  instruments 
began  to  click.  While,  on  the  door  of  a  room  just 
below  that  one  in  which  Norroy  sat,  a  sleepy  painter 
and  gilder  was  ornamenting  the  glass  panel  of  a  door 
with  the  following  legend  in  Gothic  script : 

'^txttau  of  MisBitiQ  Artirif  BL 

Concerning  this  same  legend,  the  night  editors  of 
the  New  York  newspapers  could  have  told  you  more. 
Although  Yorke  Norroy,  on  that  particular  night, 
Icnew  less  than  Muhlenberg  and  Krafft  concerning  the 
whereabouts  of  the  two  remaining  volumes  of  the 


144  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

Black  Book,  he  could  not  afford  to  remain  in  such  a 
state  of  ignorance  for  long. 

"What,"  he  had  queried  suddenly  of  Carson  Huntley 
as  their  taxicab  bowled  them  toward  the  Tower  build- 
ing, "are  the  two  prevailing  characteristics  of  hu- 
manity, Carson?"  Then  after  an  impatient  wait  he 
answered  himself:  "Cupidity  and  curiosity,  aren't 
they?"  Again  without  waiting  to  be  answered  he 
gave  the  order  which  had  resulted  in  the  sleepy  painter 
and  gilder  being  summoned  to  ornament  the  door  of 
that  tiny,  cell-like  room  that  opened  off  the  tower's 
spiral  staircase  with  a  legend  in  old  English  black 
letters.  The  room,  also  at  Norroy's  orders,  was  pro- 
vided with  a  telephone  which  bore  a  totally  different 
number  from  that  given  the  switchboard  upstairs  now 
in  the  course  of  installation. 

That  same  telephone  number,  added  to  the  above 
legend,  appeared  in  the  scribbled  script  which,  handed 
in  by  the  languid-mannered,  lackadaisical  secret  agent 
to  the  night  editors  of  the  leading  New  York  news- 
papers, caused  them  considerable  excitement. 

The  first  night  editor  had  simply  shouted:  "What? 
Run  this  on  my  first  page  ?  You  must  be  insane !  We 
do  not  run  advertisements  on  our  front  pages.  This 
is  not  a  country  newspaper.  And  besides  it  is  nearly 
midnight  The  front  pages  have  long  ago  been  made 
up.  Run  this  across  the  entire  lower  part  of  the 
page  ?    Yes,  you  are  crazy !" 

Silently  and  covering  a  yawn,  Mr.  Yorke  Norroy 
felt  within  the  pocket  of  his  impeccable  dress  coat  and 
handed  over  a  folded  paper.    Although  there  was  as 


THE  BUREAU  OF  MISSING  ARTICLES    145 

yet  no  official  declaration  of  war,  its  letterhead  read: 
"War  Board  Committee  on  Defense,"  and  authorized 
"all  patriotic  citizens  of  the  republic  to  aid  and  assist 
the  bearer  in  any  way  or  by  any  means  possible,"  going 
on  to  declare  him  charged  with  certain  important  mat- 
ters having  to  do  with  enforcing  the  secret  regulations 
concerning  alien  espionage — "for  the  defense  of  prop- 
erty and  the  lives  of  the  citizens  of  the  United  States 
of  America " 

If  there  were  any  men  who  were  aware  of  the 
impending  war  in  which  America  was  soon  to  engage, 
it  was  the  same  night  editors,  who  published  far  less 
than  they  knew,  entirely  reversing  the  old  custom  of 
journalism.  So,  with  a  sigh,  the  first  editor  departed 
skyward  to  where,  in  company  with  the  make-up  man, 
he  unlocked  and  picked  out  pieces  of  the  great  "forms" 
that  stood  ready  to  be  transferred  to  the  presses,  until 
the  four  lower  lines  of  each  column  of  type  on  the 
first-page  "form"  were  eliminated,  if  comparatively 
imimportant,  changed  and  condensed  in  company  with 
those  above  them,  if  more  important,  and,  if  absolutely 
essential,  transferred  to  other  forms  as  per  the  "con- 
tinued on  page "  that  replaced  them. 

Then,  to  the  horror  of  superintendent  and  fore- 
man, there  grew  in  their  place  across  the  entire  page 
the  following  advertisement: 

?  ?  ? 

?  ?  ?  HAVE  YOU  FOUND  SOMETHING    ?  ?  ? 

THE  BUREAU  OF  MISSING  ARTICLES, 

Telephone  Madison  oioi, 

Will  Tell  You  How  to  Get  the  Most  for  It. 


146  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

It  was  nearing  press  time  before  Norroy  had  con- 
cluded his  business  with  the  last  newspaper  on  his  list. 

He  sighed  in  rehef,  and  returned  to  the  Tower 
Building,  where  the  painter  and  gilder  was  finishing 
his  task.  While,  down  on  the  "Directory"  of  the  build- 
ing, in  white-enameled  letters,,  another  artisan  had 
supplied  the  information  that  the  "Bureau  of  Miss- 
ing Articles"  was  on  "Floor  40-A,  Room  i,"  it  did  not 
add  that  Room  i  was  likewise  the  only  room  and  Floor 
40-A  only  a  little  niche  in  the  wall  opposite  the  spiral 
stairway  that  wound  up  to  the  tower. 

A  scene  of  busy  confusion  greeted  him  as  he  put 
foot  within  what  would,  by  the  same  reckoning,  be 
Floor  40-B,  Rooms  i  and  2.  Norroy's  aids  were 
trained  for  every  emergency,  so  it  was  not  surprising 
that  Stanley  Jarboe  should  be  seated  at  the  newly  in- 
stalled switchboard,  an  operator's  receiver  clamped 
over  his  head,  busily  thrusting  in  and  out  the  ivory 
keys  that  connected  Carson  Huntley  and  Ivison  James 
with  the  various  long-distance  "exchanges"  they  re- 
quested one  after  another.  Nor  that  John  Baedeker 
Bok  should  be  operating  a  Morse  key  with  such  pro- 
ficiency as  he  transmitted  his  own  messages  and  those 
of  the  others  to  the  central  office,  which  in  its  turn 
would  send  them  broadcast  over  America  to  those 
whose  duty  it  was,  among  others,  to  apprehend  those 
tainted  with  treason.  Meanwhile,  Petersham  and 
Ulric  Ulm  copied  out  addresses  and  compiled  messages 
busily,  as  previously  instructed  by  Carson  Huntley. 

"You  must  spare  me  Petersham,  Carson,"  said 
Yorke  Norroy.     "Wammell  and  Fumival  should  be 


THE  BUREAU  OF  MISSING  ARTICLES    147 

here  before  morning.  You  wired  to  Washington  for 
them?" 

Huntley  nodded. 

"Well,  turn  over  what  you  are  doing  to  James.  I 
want  both  you  and  Petersham  to  understand  what  we 
are  doing  in  the  matter  of  the  two  missing  books. 
Come  below." 

He  waved  them  down  to  the  little  office  below.  The 
lights  switched  on,  it  was  revealed  furnished  according 
to  his  orders  with  a  desk,  a  telephone,  a  couch  behind 
a  screen,  and  very  little  else.  The  telephone,  however, 
instead  of  the  usual  bell,  had  an  annunciator,  which, 
when  the  number  was  called,  would  boom  like  a  church 
bell. 

Briefly  Norroy  explained  about  the  advertisement 
which  would  appear  in  every  New  York  morning 
paper. 

"And  this" — he  waved  his  hand — "is  the  Bureau 
of  Missing  Articles,  and  you,  Carson,  are  the  chief 
thereof.  It  will  be  impossible  for  any  one  in  New 
York  to  avoid  seeing  that  advertisement,  and  before 
noon  to-morrow  I  am  sure  one  or  both  of  the  finders 
will  phone — whether  actuated  by  honesty  or  dishonesty 
doesn't  matter.  Therefore,  as  I  have  a  hard  night's 
work  ahead  of  me,  I  want  you  to  go  home  and  get 
some  sleep.  I  want  you.  Petersham,  to  sleep  here. 
You  will,  of  course,  call  Mr.  Huntley  up  for  instruc- 
tions, Petersham,  and  you,  Carson,  will  get  in  touch 
with  me  if  you  can.  I  will  arrange  to  have  two  of 
the  others  ready  to  be  called,  if  necessary.  Now — go 
home !    And  return  here  by  nine  o'clock.    You,  Peter- 


148  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

sham,  can  run  along,  too,  and  bring  back  some  clean 
things  for  the  morning." 

With  which  Norroy  returned  to  the  tower,  and  Car- 
son Huntley,  after  explaining  his  progress  with  the 
work  of  warning  the  authorities  as  to  the  names  con- 
tained in  the  two  volumes,  departed  for  his  apartment 
just  off  lower  Fifth  Avenue,  being  doubly  careful  to 
wind  the  alarm  clock  which  should  awaken  him  at 
eight.  But  whether  or  not  it  was  because  that  extra 
carefulness  was  too  great  a  strain,  or  whether  the 
alarm  machinery  had  grown  old  and  decrepit  or 
whether  Miss  Fortune  willed  it  that  Charles  Petersham 
should  come  to  handgrips  with  the  men  who  had 
robbed  him  of  his  right  to  become  an  officer  and  naval 
constructor  in  his  country's  service,  certain  it  is  that 
at  half  after  nine  the  next  morning  Charles  Petersham 
was  awake  and  alone.  He  had  been  awake  since  eight, 
had  completed  his  toilet  with  the  aid  of  the  running 
water  in  the  stationary  stand  behind  the  screen,  and 
had  attired  himself  once  again  in  the  style  he  had 
assumed  from  copying  young  naval  officers  in  mufti. 

Since  then  he  had  smoked  numerous  cigarettes  and 
had  wondered  what  kept  Carson.  He  was  a  trifle 
weary  of  this  occupation  when  to  his  delighted  aston- 
ishment the  bell  boomed  out  its  challenge. 

He  seized  the  receiver  and  almost  shouted  his 
"hello"  into  the  transmitter.  A  girl's  voice  responded 
with  a  question  as  to  his  identity.  He  quoted  the  sign 
on  the  door. 

"Then,"  said  the  girl,  "I  want  to  ask  you " 

But  no  matter  what   she  wanted,   some  one   else 


THE  BUREAU  OF  MISSING  ARTICLES    149 

wanted  otherwise.  Despite  the  fact  that  her  hand  was 
doubtless  clapped  over  the  black  mouthpiece,  he  heard 
confused  quarreling.  And  the  other  voice  was  that 
of  an  old  man!  It  was  high,  querulous,  protesting. 
Then  suddenly  he  heard  the  connection  cut  off. 

He  called  again  and  again,  but  to  no  purpose.  Then 
banging  the  receiver  against  the  hook,  he  called  his 
"Central,"  and  whispered  to  her  the  phrase  that  put 
her  at  his  orders;  the  phrase  used  by  treasury  agents, 
those  of  the  department  of  justice,  and  his  own  corps, 
adding  to  it  an  imperative  order. 

"Very  well,  sir,"  she  replied. 

In  another  moment  he  had  the  required  information. 
"The  number  is  Setauket  io-J-8,"  she  said.  "Was  that 
all?" 

"The  address?" 

Followed  another  pause.  "Asbjomson,  Cove  Cot- 
tage, Setauket,"  came  the  answer. 

Petersham  thanked  her  jubilantly.  Then  he  raced 
up  the  spiral  stairway  to  the  rooms  above.  At  one 
desk,  Baedeker  Bok  dozed.  Wammell,  a  short,  stocky 
fellow,  formerly  a  treasury  agent,  was  at  the  Morse 
key.  Furnival,  studious  in  his  black-rimmed  eyeglasses 
with  long  black  ribbon  attached,  was  phoning. 

It  required  less  than  a  moment  for  Petersham  to 
give  his  information  and  blurt  out  his  request  to  Fur- 
nival.     He  pointed  to  Bok. 

"Let  him  stay  by  the  telephone.  Huntley  will  be 
here  any  moment  now,  and  the  bell  will  wake  Bok 
if  necessary ;  it's  meant  to  wake  anybody.    Meanwhile, 


,iScr  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

I  can  investigate.  It  takes  several  hours  to  reacK 
Setauket,  remember." 

Hardly  waiting  for  Furnival  to  give  permission — 
which  he  did  somewhat  dazedly  and  hardly  under- 
standing— Petersham  pushed  the  sleepy  Baedeker  be- 
fore him  and  below.  Then  seizing  his  special-service 
automatic  in  its  arm  holster  and  adjusting  it,  and 
slipping  on  his  fur  coat  and  cap  he  ran  downstairs, 
and  rang  for  the  elevator. 

In  the  car  that  came  up  stood  Carson  Huntley.  Ex- 
plaining breathlessly  and  giving  his  destination.  Peter- 
sham stepped  in  as  Carson  stepped  out,  the  elevator 
<ioor  slammed,  and  Huntley,  cursing  all  alarm  clocks, 
went  upstairs  to  telephone  Yorke  Norroy. 


CHAPTER  IV 

In  Which  I  Hide  the  Book,  and  Pay  a  Terrible 
Price  for  its  Possession 

(Being  the  Narrative  of  Clovis  Clarke,  Con- 
tinued) 

OUR  house,  near  Setauket — ^my  stepfather's 
and  mine — had  been  a  cause  for  surprise 
to  many,  and  doubtless  will  to  more,  for 
it  is  built  over  what  our  Scotch  gardner,  Tom,  calls 
a  "bum";  a  streamlet  that  runs  between  two  rocky 
little  hills  and  empties  into  Cranberry  Cove,  the  waters 
of  which  in  turn  mingle  with  those  of  many  other  arms 
of  Setauket  Channel  and  Port  Jefferson  Harbor.  This 
is  separated  from  the  sea  by  a  long,  narrow  strip  of 
white  beach  and  dun  marshland,  which  runs  its  way 
between  two  lighthouses,  a  distance  of  some  six  or 
seven  miles.  Cranberry  Cove  is  an  indentation  just 
opposite  the  center  of  this  lonely  stretch  of  land  and 
water,  and  at  high  tide  our  house  is  almost  on  an 
island,  for  the  channel  overflows  the  marsh  on  either 
side  of  us,  while  beneath  our  main  room  rushes  the 
fresh  water  of  the  little  stream. 

A  more  secluded  spot  one  can  scarcely  imagine.  For 

151 


152  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

neighbors  we  had  only  wild  fowl.  To  these  the  lonely 
stretch  of  flooded  marshland  was  a  sure  bait,  and  here 
many  remained  even  in  the  winter,  no  doubt  because 
few  places  gave  so  great  an  abundance  of  the  food 
they  liked  best.  One  could  thread  one's  way  in  and 
out  of  the  lagoons  in  the  marshland  for  hours,  and 
in  summer,  when  the  tall  grasses  and  rank  vegetation 
grew  high,  one  could  get  completely  lost  within  hailing 
distance  of  home. 

The  presence  of  the  birds  was  my  stepfather's  rea- 
son for  building  his  house  in  so  strange  a  spot  and 
in  building  so  peculiar  a  one.  For,  as  I  have  said, 
part  of  it  was  directly  over  the  "burn" ;  that  is  to  say, 
while  our  sleeping  quarters  were  on  solid  ground  on 
one  side,  and  the  kitchen,  dining  room,  laundry,  and 
smokehouse  were  on  the  other,  the  upper  stories  of 
the  two  wings  were  joined  together  by  an  arched, 
bridgelike  piece  of  masonry,  its  foundation  imbedded 
in  the  bum  side,  over  which  was  a  large  room  with 
sheets  of  plate  glass  forming  the  greater  part  of  its 
side.  There  were  steep,  sloping  roofs  of  slate  stone 
whose  eaves  overhung  half  of  the  great  glass  windows 
and  ascended  from  them  to  a  height  of  fully  fifteen 
feet.  Between  the  interstices  of  the  slates  on  this  great 
central  roof,  of  which  the  roofs  of  the  other  wings 
were  but  smaller  copies,  my  stepfather  had  been  at 
pains  to  cultivate  moss  and  lichens  and  certain  small 
plants.  In  fact,  to  make  these  roofs  as  much  as  pos- 
sible like  those  in  Scandinavia. 

For  my  stepfather  was  a  Scandinavian  himself, 
Asgard  Asbjornson  by  name;  his  avocation  that  of 


THE  BUREAU  OF  MISSING  ARTICLES    153 

ornithologist.  Particularly  was  he  known  as  the  chief 
living  authority  on  long-billed,  long-legged  birds  of 
the  stork  family.  He  had  devoted  his  life  to  the  study 
of  the  stork  while  at  the  University  of  Stockholm, 
which  study  soon  led  him  to  include  the  heron,  the 
crane,  the  bittern,  the  egret,  the  shoebill,  the  goliath, 
and  many  more. 

Specimens  of  some  of  these  dwelt  either  in  the 
great  room  above  or  in  the  burn  below,  the  space 
beneath  the  bridge  being  a  sort  of  gigantic  cage  fur- 
nished with  sides  of  steel  netting  from  above  and 
dammed  below.  Some  of  the  more  domesticated  birds, 
especially  storks  born  in  captivity,  were  allowed  to 
make  their  nests  alongside  our  chimneys.  It  was  for 
their  benefit  the  moss  and  little  roof  plants  had  been 
grown  as  in  their  native  North.  Stepfather  had  im- 
ported the  storks,  and  I  must  say  that  most  of  them 
died. 

All  was  quiet  about  our  house  on  the  night  we  re- 
turned to  it  after  my  adventure  in  Van  Corlear  Square. 
It  was  snowing,  however,  and  we  had  been  hard  put 
to  it  after  leaving  the  train  to  keep  to  the  narrow  road 
that  led  to  Cranberry  Cove,  almost  all  the  way  along 
the  side  of  a  steep  hill.  It  was  growing  bitterly  cold, 
and  stepfather  was  too  concerned  with  the  proper  tem- 
perature of  his  precious  eggs  to  bother  much  about  the 
book  we  had  found.  Once  we  reached  the  house  he 
hurried  to  the  aviary  and  inserted  them  in  a  setting 
stork's  nest.  The  birds  set  up  a  harsh  clamor  at  our 
entrance,  and  my  particular  pet,  Sigrid,  a  young  stork 
who  had  yet  to  know  any  place  but  the  aviary,  came 


IS4  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

pecking  at  the  place  where  the  pockets  of  my  house 
gowns  were  and  which  usually  contained  cake  crumbs 
for  him. 

Altogether,  there  was  much  to  occupy  us,  so  step- 
father said  never  a  word  about  the  book  that  night.  I 
examined  it  before  retiring,  and  found  it  to  contain 
nothing  but  names,  each  carefully  catalogued  under  its 
proper  initial  and  each  in  a  different  handwriting.  The 
ink  in  which  some  were  written  was  faded;  that  of 
others  was  as  fresh  as  if  they  had  been  written  but 
yesterday. 

After  I  had  turned  out  the  light  to  live  over  the 
exciting  scenes  of  the  night  before,  I  went  to  sleep 
with  the  book  under  my  pillow,  and  dreamed  about  it 
— one  of  those  queer,  jumbled  dreams  like  the  pursuits 
in  the  early  moving  pictures,  when  the  scenes  change 
suddenly  and  without  any  essential  reason. 

When  I  awoke  I  found  I  had  overslept  and  that 
Tom  McNab,  our  gardener  and  handy  man,  was  just 
returning  from  the  village.  The  snow  was  getting 
so  deep,  he  explained,  that  he  had  thought  it  best  to 
go  for  the  mail  and  for  some  necessary  provisions 
before  the  road  should  become  impassable.  Even  as 
it  was,  it  had  taken  him  an  hour  to  make  the  return 
trip — a  matter  of  but  six  miles. 

He  brought  the  morning  paper,  which  had  just 
come  as  he  was  leaving,  and  after  I  had  superintended 
the  getting  of  breakfast  I  came  back  to  the  roaring 
fire  in  the  dining  room  and  sat  down  to  read  of  the 
world  war.  For  I  was  even  then  an  active  partisan 
of  the  Allies,  and  one  of  my  great  grievances  against 


THE  BUREAU  OF  MISSING  ARTICLES     155 

stepfather  was  his  insistence  that  we  should  remain 
neutral,  like  his  beloved  Sweden. 

I  had  hardly  folded  back  the  paper  to  the  first  page 
before  my  eye  detected  something  unusual  about  it. 
Nor  was  I  long  in  discovering  that  this  was  due  to 
the  big,  black-lettered  advertisement  at  the  foot  of 
the  page : 

THE  BUREAU  OF  MISSING  ARTICLES. 

The  size  and  blackness  of  the  type  caught  my  eye, 
as  I  know  now  it  was  meant  to  do.  Almost  inevitably 
my  mind  reverted  to  the  book  I  had  found.  It  was 
of  no  sort  of  use  to  me.  No  doubt  it  was  to  those 
to  whom  it  belonged.  If  /  had  seen  this  advertise- 
ment, surely  its  owners  would  do  the  same.  And  as 
it  would  be  a  matter  of  great  difficulty  to  duplicate  a 
book  written  by  so  many  hands,  the  owners  would  be 
glad  to  pay  a  substantial  reward.  No  doubt  this  bureau 
v»ould  be  able  to  increase  the  size  of  it. 

The  money  would  be  very  welcome  to  me,  from 
whose  income  stepfather  begrudged  even  the  price  of 
a  new  hat.  I  stepped  to  the  telephone,  asked  for  the 
number  given  by  the  advertisement,  and  waited  im- 
patiently to  be  connected.  Just  as  an  answering  "hello" 
came  and  I  had  started  to  ask  a  question,  my  step- 
father appeared  at  the  door  and  asked  me  sharply  what 
I  was  doing. 

I  covered  the  receiver  and  told  him. 

"Put  it  down!"  he  said.  "You  can  call  them  up  later, 
if  necessary.     Not  now.'* 


iS6  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

It  showed  that  he  had  been  giving  the  subject  of  the 
book  more  thought  than  I  had  supposed. 

"If  the  book  is  valuable,  let  the  owners  make  some 
offer  for  it,"  he  said  shrewdly.  "If  we  rush  to  them 
with  it,  they  will  think  they  can  get  it  cheaply.  The 
longer  it  takes  to  find  it,  the  more  reward  they  are 
likely  to  pay.  And  if  I  had  an  extra  hundred  or  so 
I  could  buy  three  rare  and  excellent  specimens  that  I 
saw  yesterday — ^three  not  in  my  collection.  Put  down 
the  receiver!" 

I  responded  angrily  that  I  had  found  the  book  and 
he  had  no  right  to  appropriate  the  reward  to  buy  new 
birds,  even  before  I  got  it.  Then,  remembering  I  still 
held  the  receiver,  I  hung  up;  for  stepfather  was  ad- 
vancing toward  me  in  a  determined  way  that  I  knew 
of  old.  He  is  a  perfect  tiger  where  his  aviary  is  con- 
cerned. 

Even  though  my  attempt  to  tell  the  Missing  Articles 
man  seemed  unsuccessful  at  the  moment,  it  was  a  for- 
tunate thing  for  me  I  tried  it.    As  you  will  hear. 

"Get  me  that  book!"  said  stepfather  in  his  most 
commanding  manner.  And  so  accustomed  was  I  to 
obey  that  I  immediately  quitted  the  dining  room  and 
went  to  mine,  where  I  took  the  book  from  under  the 
pillow.  Then — I  will  never  be  able  to  tell  why — I 
paused. 

Let  no  one  ever  deny  telepathic  influence  in  my 
presence,  for  it  was  nothing  short  of  telepathy  that 
made  me  do  what  I  did.  Seven  enemies  and  one  friend 
were,  at  that  moment,  making  their  way  toward  Cove 
Cottage,  and  the  minds  of  three  at  least  were  intensely 


THE  BUREAU  OF  MISSING  ARTICLES    157 

concentrated  upon  the  missing  book — two  for  evil,  one 
for  good.  In  no  other  way  can  I  explain  the  curious 
shudder  that  went  over  me  as  I  plucked  the  book  from 
under  my  pillow.  The  shudder  was  followed  imme- 
diately by  a  warming  glow. 

Under  the  influence  of  the  latter,  and  almost 
mechanically,  like  a  sleepwalker,  I  caught  up  something 
and  went  downstairs.  I  think  I  have  said  that  our 
sleeping  quarters  were  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  bum 
connected  with  the  dining  and  living  rooms,  kitchen, 
and  so  forth  by  the  stone  archway  over  which  was  the 
aviary.  Below  my  bedroom  and  his,  on  the  ground 
floor,  was  stepfather's  study,  library,  and  workroom 
generally — which  I  was  strictly  forbidden  to  enter  in 
his  absence.  But  now,  disregarding  his  ukase,  I 
stepped  through  this  sanctum  and  unlocked  a  door 
that  led  to  a  little  porch  sheltered  from  the  storms  by 
the  sloping  side  of  the  hill. 

This  porch,  being  on  the  far  side  of  the  farther 
wing,  was  hidden  from  the  view  of  my  stepfather  in 
the  dining  room,  whose  windows  looked  down  upon 
the  now  frozen  burn.  Before  leaving  my  room  I  had 
drawn  a  heavy  jersey  over  my  head,  put  on  a  pair  of 
fur-trimmed  gloves,  and  caught  up  my  skates.  The 
hillside  was  free  from  the  snow,  it  having  drifted 
downward;  so  reaching  the  top  was  easy  as  was  de- 
scending the  opposite  side. 

Here  the  entire  sweep  of  the  frozen  charmel  glittered 
before  me  like  dullest  blue  steel;  for  it  was  a  gray, 
sunless  day.  I  might  have  skated  straight  to  Port 
Jefferson  had  I  wished,  for  Setauket  water  had  been 


IS8  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

frozen  for  a  month  or  more.  But  I  did  not  need 
to  go  so  far.  Not  half  a  mile  away,  its  entrance 
hidden  by  a  thicket  that  grew  down  below  high  tide, 
and  beneath  a  steep  promontory  crowned  with  cedar 
and  pine,  was  the  entrance  to  a  little  cave  which  in 
summer  served  as  a  base  for  my  swimming.  Here 
I  had  conveyed  a  small  locker,  where  I  kept  my  bathing 
suit,  towels,  and  soap  and  one  or  two  other  articles — 
including  some  cigarettes,  which  I  had  never  the  cour- 
age to  smoke  in  any  one's  presence. 

The  locker  key  was  on  the  key  ring  with  the  house 
keys  and  on  the  end  of  a  double  silver  chain  swung 
round  my  neck,  the  ends  tucked  in  at  my  belt.  It 
required  but  a  brief  time  to  strap  on  my  skates,  make 
the  half-mile  trip  to  and  from  Piney  Point,  where  I 
hid  the  book.  I  returned  to  house  and  to  dining  room, 
secure  in  the  fact  that  the  mysterious  book  was  locked 
away  where  no  one  could  get  it  except  myself.  The 
entrance  to  the  cave  was  securely  hidden,  even  with 
the  foliage  gone  from  the  bushes.  I  myself  had  dis- 
covered the  cave  only  by  accident. 

My  stepfather  was  fretting  and  fuming.  He  would 
have  gone  to  my  room  to  fetch  me  had  I  not  made 
his  favorite  biscuits,  and,  as  these  must  be  eaten  hot, 
he  had  remained.  He  had  no  suspicion  that  I  had 
been  out  of  the  house,  for  I  had  replaced  my  damp 
shoes  with  dress  pumps  and  had  rubbed  rice  powder 
over  a  face  made  rosy  by  my  outdoors  experience. 

"What  have  you  been  doing?"  he  fretted. 

"Hiding  that  book  where  you  can't  find  it,"  I  an- 
swered him  squarely,  and  sat  down  to  my  breakfast. 


THE  BUREAU  OF  MISSING  ARTICLES    159 

Then,  as  I  realized  I  must  have  a  reason,  I  added: 
"It's  not  fair  you  should  take  all  the  money  for  the 
reward — if  there  is  one.  Unless  I  get  at  least  half 
of  it,  I  shall  not  tell  you  where  I  hid  the  book." 

He  looked  at  me,  opening  and  shutting  his  little  gray 
eyes;  he  is  a  little  gray  man  all  over,  is  stepfather. 
But  he  saw  I  had  the  whip  hand,  so  said  nothing. 

The  silence  remained  unbroken  but  a  short  time, 
however,  for  the  sound  of  sleigh  bells  outside  sent 
him  skipping  from  dining  room  to  living  room.  The 
latter  is  in  the  extreme  rear  of  the  cottage — although 
it  is  the  front. as  far  as  visitors  are  concerned — and 
faces  the  road  that  winds  along  the  steep  hillside  over- 
looking the  channel  until  it  debouches  inward  and  is 
lost  to  sight  among  the  firs  and  cedars  back  of  the 
cove.  Through  these  it  is  again  seen,  white  and  shin- 
ing, alongside  the  frozen  burn  as  it  emerges  from  the 
evergreens  in  full  sight  of  Cove  Cottage. 

Evidently  the  sound  of  sleigh  bells  had  been  carried 
to  us  by  the  cove  echoes  while  the  sleigh  was  yet  high 
up  on  the  hillside,  for  when  I  ran  to  see  there  was 
no  one  in  sight.  So  I  returned  to  finish  my  breakfast, 
and  as  I  was  inordinately  hungry — thanks  to  my  skat- 
ing trip — I  allowed  the  nearer  approach  of  the  bells 
and  the  subsequent  entrance  of  the  strangers  into  the 
cottage  to  go  until  it  was  too  late.  For  just  as,  amid 
the  sound  of  voices,  I  caught  the  word  "book,"  and 
was  about  to  arise  and  investigate,  the  heavy  door 
of  the  living  room  was  shut  tight  and  locked.  And 
as  all  the  doors  in  our  cottage  are  thick  and  heavy, 
and  fit  snugly  into  their  arched  doorways — ^like  those 


i6o  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

seen  in  Swiss  chalets  or  those  of  any  other  cold  and 
mountainous  country — it  was  useless  to  endeavor  to 
listen  at  the  door. 

So  I  waited,  impatiently  drumming  my  heels  against 
the  tiles  of  the  fireplace,  until,  after  some  fifteen  min- 
utes, the  door  opened  and  my  stepfather  led  one  of 
the  men  to  the  telephone  in  the  dining  room.  He  made 
no  move  to  introduce  me,  nor  did  the  man  make  known 
his  knowledge  of  my  presence,  but  stepped  to  the 
instrument  and  asked  for  Riverside  08679.  He  spoke 
in  English,  and  I  had  no  reason  to  believe  it  was  not 
his  native  tongue.  But  when  he  was  informed  that 
the  party  he  had  called  had  left  for  his  downtown 
office,  he  swore  suddenly  and  fiercely  in  German,  al- 
though under  his  breath ;  then  asked  the  exchange  for 
another  number. 

There  was  something  peculiarly  unpleasant  about 
this  man,  although  I  could  not  name  it.  There  was 
little  to  make  out  as  to  his  appearance,  for  he  wore 
a  heavy  fur  coat  and  a  fur  cap  which  came  down  over 
his  ears,  while  a  pair  of  motor  goggles  was  drawn 
low  over  his  eyes.  Hence,  most  of  his  face  was 
hidden. 

When  he  was  connected  with  his  second  number 
he  shifted  so  sharply  to  German  that  I  did  not  follow 
his  first  words.  But,  having  acted  as  Stepfather 
Asgard  Asbjornson's  secretary  so  long,  and  as  much 
of  his  correspondence  with  learned  societies  in  Scan- 
dinavia is  carried  on  in  German,  I  had  kept  up  and 
improved    my    boarding-school    knowledge    of    that 


THE  BUREAU  OF  MISSING  ARTICLES    i6i 

tongue,  both  written  and  spoken — for  stepfather  dic- 
tated most  of  his  letters  to  me. 

"This  is  Knatchbull,"  I  heard  him  say  now,  although 
it  was  not  until  afterward  that  I  learned  how  to  spell 
this  name,  which  sounds  so  differently  when  spoken 
in  gutturals.  "We  have  located  the  book.  But  we 
showed  ourselves  too  eager  to  get  it,  and  the  old  man 
wants  five  hundred ;  won't  take  less.  We  haven't  half 
that  much.  Arrange  to  have  your  bank  telephone  the 
Second  National  at  Port  Jefferson  three  hundred. 
Immediately,  d'you  hear?  We  will  drive  back  to  the 
village  and  wait  for  it.  Waive  identification.  No,  no 
trouble — yet.  No,  the  old  fellow  has  no  idea  of  what 
he  found.  We  were  too  eager,  that's  all.  Only  Muhl- 
enberg and  I  in  a  sleigh;  the  others  are  at  the  village 
inn  with  the  two  cars.  I  don't  imagine  we'll  need  them. 
Well,  make  haste " 

This  conversation  left  me  in  a  state  that  can  be 
better  imagined  than  described.  When  the  man  turned 
I  turned  also ;  I  had  no  wish  that  he  note  the  emotions 
his  conversation  had  aroused.  Better  he  should  im- 
agine I  understood  no  German.  As  for  Stepfather 
Asgard,  he  had  returned  to  the  living  room  to  continue 
a  conversation  with  the  other  man;  so  he  heard 
nothing. 

The  two  took  their  departure,  promising  to  return 
shortly.  It  was  all  I  could  do  to  restrain  myself  until 
I  heard  their  retreating  sleigh  bells  before  bursting 
into  the  other  room  to  tell  stepfather  what  I  had  heard. 
By  now  I  had  a  lively  suspicion — as  who  would  not, 
with  the  newspapers  full  of  spy  plots — as  to  the  sinister 


i6a  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

significance  of  that  book.     I  remembered  now  that 
mostly  German  names  figured  in  it. 

But  the  prospect  of  the  five  hundred  dollars  which 
would  so  materially  augment  his  aviary  had  destroyed 
poor  stepfather's  mental  balance.  I  prefer  to  believe 
that  he  had  been  a  trifle  unbalanced  for  some  time,  as 
are  most  victims  of  monomania.  He  listened  to  me 
impatiently  as  I  told  him  what  I  had  heard. 

"Nonsense!"  he  said  roughly.  "You  are  making 
melodrama,  miss.  I  do  not  believe  a  word  of  it.  Where 
is  that  book?" 

"It's  where  they  won't  get  it,  anyhow,"  I  returned, 
stirred  to  anger.  "Shame  on  you,  stepfather.  These 
men  are  doubtless  enemies  of  the  United  States,  and 
you  are  willing  to  play  into  their  hands  for  a  few 
hundred  dollars.  What  kind  of  an  American  are 
you?" 

"No  kind,"  he  returned  hoarsely.  "This  European 
war  has  made  an  end  to  that  sort  of  foolishness.  There 
are  no  Americans ;  only  Englishmen  and  Germans  and 
Frenchmen  twice  or  three  or  four  times  removed." 

I  was  staggered  by  this  frank  confession.  That  it 
represented  a  spirit  by  no  means  uncommon  the  news- 
papers are  verifying  every  day. 

"What  is  this  dollar-worshipping  country  to  me  that 
I  should  care  for  it?"  he  demanded.  "And,  anyhow, 
I  disbelieve  your  story.     Give  me  that  book." 

"I  will  do  nothing  of  the  sort,"  I  said,  and  retreated 
before  his  advance.  As  I  was  fleeter  of  foot  than 
he,  I  gained  the  upper  story  and  fled  through  the  bird 
house,  the  storks  and  herons  setting  up  a  raucous 


THE  BUREAU  OF  MISSING  ARTICLES    163 

tumult  as  I  slammed  the  door  behind  me.  Before 
going  to  my  own  room,  I  locked  the  aviary  door  behind 
me,  which  gave  me  time  to  don  my  ducking  boots 
and  other  winter  gear  before  unlocking  the  door.  Step- 
father had  been  rattling  it  to  no  avail,  and  at  its  sudden 
opening  he  stumbled  in.  But  I  was  downstairs  and 
out  by  the  little  porchway  before  he  had  picked  him- 
self up. 

I  continued  my  flight  until  I  reached  a  footbridge 
over  the  frozen  burn,  which  I  crossed,  and  came  out 
among  the  evergreens.  My  absence  would  enable  step- 
father to  ransack  my  room  and  find  nothing,  and  I 
would  be  absent  when  the  men  returned.  Now  for 
the  first  time  I  seriously  determined  to  do  what  I  had 
often  considered  doing — ^breaking  it  off  altogether 
with  him.  After  all,  he  was  nothing  to  me,  and  I 
was  only  a  convenience  to  him — a  housekeeper  not 
only  without  pay,  but  who  paid — paid  him  the  little 
income  mother  had  left  me.  Moreover,  I  was  of  age 
now,  and  he  no  longer  controlled  me. 

I  was  so  absorbed  by  these  reflections  that  I  emerged 
from  among  the  evergreens  without  realizing  it,  and 
had  become  momentarily  deaf,  it  seemed,  for  a  strange 
young  man's  sleigh  was  almost  upon  me  before  I  heard 
the  sound  of  bells.  At  sight  of  me  he  pulled  up — 
he  was  driving  the  hired  vehicle  himself — and  ad- 
dressed me,  asking  where  was  Asbjornson's. 

"Why?"  I  parried. 

He  eyed  me  closely,  and  I  had  time  to  discover  that 
he  was  a  singularly  attractive  young  man  of  the  best 
type  we  Americans  breed. 


x64  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

"Are  yoii  from  there  ?"  he  said. 

My  manner  must  have  betrayed  me,  for  he  added 
swiftly,  his  sentences  tumbling  out  one  after  another: 

"You  aren't  by  any  chance  the  girl  who  picked  up 
that  book,  are  you  ?  I  do  believe  you  are !  Well,  then, 
my  search  is  over.  For  when  I  tell  you  why  I  want 
it  you'll  hand  it  over  without  a  word.  You're  that 
kind,  I  know.    Get  in,  won't  you?" 

He  made  room  beside  him,  and  before  I  had  done 
much  more  than  admit  that  I  was  the  girl  he  had 
poured  out  the  story  of  the  Black  Book,  which,  I  have 
been  given  to  understand,  will  have  been  already  re- 
corded before  my  story  is  read. 

It  confirmed  my  worst  suspicions,  and  I  readily 
promised  what  he  requested.  But  then  I  bethought 
me  to  tell  him  about  stepfather's  bargain  and  the  men 
who  had  gone  to  the  village  bank. 

"They  are  apt  to  return  while  you  are  waiting  for 
me  to  get  the  book,"  I  said,  in  high  feather  that  I,  a 
mere  girl,  was  having  a  chance  to  become  a  character 
in  so  thrilling  an  affair — I,  whose  life  had  been  as 
devoid  of  active  incident  as  an  oyster's.  Besides,  when 
I  had  assented  as  to  the  book,  this  very  attractive  boy 
had  seized  both  of  my  heavily  gloved  hands  and  had 
raised  them  to  his  lips — which  may  have  been  very 
silly,  but  is  the  sort  of  silliness  we  women  adore. 

He  agreed  it  was  likely  they  would  return  as  soon 
as  possible.  "If  I  could  hide  my  horse  and  sleigh  some- 
where  "  he  began. 

I  knew  the  very  place — an  old,  dismantled  shack 
in  a  near-by  gorge,  out  of  sight  of  both  road  and  house. 


THE  BUREAU  OF  MISSING  ARTICLES    165 

The  boy  leaped  out  and  stripped  the  bells  from  the 
sleigh  so  that  the  sound  would  not  be  carried  to  step- 
father, and  then  drove  where  I  indicated.  When  the 
horse  was  within  the  half-ruined  place,  he  rubbed  it 
down  vigorously  and  covered  it  with  blanket  and  lap 
robe. 

"But  you,"  I  said  doubtfully,  "where  will  you  hide 
while  I  return  to  get  my  skates  and  go  after  the  book  ? 
It  is  quite  some  distance." 

He  asked  me  to  describe  the  construction  of  our 
house,  and  when  I  did  he  opened  his  eyes  in  amaze- 
ment. He  said  he  had  never  heard  of  anything  like 
it,  and  I  agreed  sorrowfully  that  it  had  cost  enough 
to  build.     Then  he  considered: 

"Suppose  you  go  in  as  you  came  out  and  leave  the 
porch  door  open  behind  you.  Then  cross  over  and 
keep  your  stepfather  engaged  so  that  he  won't  see 
me  when  I  approach.  Then  I'll  slip  in  and  hide  on 
the  stairs  or  above."  He  paused.  "That  is,"  he  added, 
"if  you  don't  mind.  Then,  when  you  return  with  the 
book,  you  can  hand  it  to  me,  and  I  will  see  it  goes 
where  it  belongs.  But  about  yourself,"  he  went  on, 
rather  troubled,  "you'll  get  into  hot  water  over  this, 
and  although  I  don't  see  what  else  you  can  do — if 
you're  a  loyal  American — well " 

He  peered  at  me  anxiously,  and  I  was  overjoyed 
that  I  should  interest  him  sufficiently  to  trouble  him. 

"I  had  already  made  up  my  mind  to  leave,"  I  an- 
swered quickly.  "Anyhow,  I  would  have  been  in  just 
as  much  trouble  if  you  hadn't  come,  for  I  would  never 


i66  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

have  handed  over  that  book  to  those  others.  But  we're 
wasting  time.    They  may  be  back  any  minute." 

We  did  as  we  had  arranged  up  to  a  certain  point. 
If  only  I  had  told  hifh  just  where  I  had  put  the  book, 
how  much  trouble  would  have  been  spared  us!  But 
in  my  haste  I  said  only  that  it  was  hidden  some  dis- 
tance away. 

Stepfather  had  descended  to  wheedling,  finding  that 
threats  had  no  effect,  and  when  he  had  promised  me 
half  the  reward — a  promise  I  knew  he  would  break — 
I  pretended  to  be  convinced. 

"All  right;  I'll  get  it,"  I  agreed,  and  was  about 
to  go  out  again  when  sounds  reached  us  from  over  the 
snow.  Stepfather  rushed  to  the  front  room  and  I 
after  him.  This  time  there  was  a  reason  why  I  did 
not  hear  the  newcomers  before  they  left  the  hills. 
There  was  neither  sleigh  bells  nor  sleigh.  There,  in 
plain  view,  only  a  rod  or  so  from  the  house,  were  my 
enemies  advancing.  But  this  time  they  had  plowed 
their  way  through  in  two  big,  closed  motor  cars.  As 
they  came  to  a  halt  some  distance  away,  five  others 
besides  the  two  who  had  visited  us  before  leaped  out 
and  stood  about  in  the  snow. 

I  turned  to  run,  but  stepfather  caught  and  held  me. 
"Give  me  the  book!"  he  demanded  for  the  fortieth 
time.  All  his  humility  had  vanished.  "Give  it  to 
me!" 

*Tt's — it's  not  in  the  house,"  I  gasped.  "Let  me  go 
and  I'll  get  it." 

"You'll  stay  right  here,"  said  he  grimly,  "until  I 
get  that  book.     I  know  where  it  is;  you  have  it  on 


THE  BUREAU  OF  MISSING  ARTICLES    167 

you.  It  was  not  in  your  room,  and  it  is  not  likely  you 
left  it  anywhere  outside." 

There  came  a  ring  to  our  doorbell.  My  stepfather 
called  for  those  outside  to  enter,  which  they  did.  There 
were  two  of  them,  as  before,  and  the  one  who  had 
talked  over  the  telephone  came  forward,  shaking  off 
the  snow,  and  placed  a  packet  upon  the  center  table. 

"There's  your  money,"  he  said.  "Now  let  us  have 
a  look  at  what  we  get  for  it." 

Meanwhile,  the  man  was  not  indifferent  to  our  atti- 
tudes, for  it  was  plain  that  stepfather  had  been  holding 
my  hands  and  that  I  had  just  broken  away  from  him. 
As  he  turned  to  the  table,  I  made  a  movement  to  reach 
the  door,  but  he  was  before  me. 

"She  has  the  book,"  he  said  sullenly,  seeing  that  my 
mind  remained  fixed. 

"She  has  it,"  he  repeated,  "and  I'll  tell  you  truth- 
fully, gentleman,  I  don't  think  you'll  get  it.  She  has 
some  insane  notion  that  the  two  of  you  are  German 
spies,  and  she  refuses  to  give  you  any  aid  whatsoever. 
What  aid  this  book  may  be  I  do  not  know,  nor  does 
she.    But  there  the  matter  stands." 

Yes,  and  there  he  stood,  too,  eyeing  that  packet  of 
money  as  greedily  as  one  of  his  storks  might  eye  a  fat 
fish. 

The  man,  KnatchbuU,  as  he  had  named  himself, 
turned  slowly  toward  me.  With  an  air  of  the  utmost 
politeness,  he  doffed  fur  cap  and  motor  goggles  and 
addressed  me.  I  saw  his  dead-white  face  and  strangely 
shining  eyes,  and  grew  suddenly  alarmed. 

"Miss,"  he  said,  but  thickly,  as  one  who  restrains 


i68  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

rage,  "are  you  not  satisfied  to  believe  that  book  belongs 
to  us?" 

"Whether  it  does  or  not,  you  shall  not  get  it,"  I 
answered  doggedly,  "As  for  you,"  I  turned  to  my 
stepfather,  "I  have  remained  with  you  because  you 
were  an  old  man  and  needed  me.  But  this  very  day 
I  leave  this  house  for  good." 

"Surely  you  were  not  thinking  of  going  before  you 
restore  our  book  ?"  asked  Knatchbull  silkily. 

I  replied  that  I  was. 

"Then  I  am  sorry,"  he  said.  But  he  did  not  sound 
as  if  he  were  sorry,  and  his  teeth  snapped.  "I  should 
dislike  to  search  you "  he  began  again.    "But " 

"Even  if  you  did — if  you  dared,"  I  answered,  "you 
would  get  nothing.  The  book  is  not  in  this  house.  It 
is  where  you  will  never  get  it." 

"So  long  as  no  one  else  gets  it,"  said  Knatchbull, 
with  the  same  silky  snarl,  "that  suits  us  exactly.  But 
we  shall  be  compelled  to  assure  ourselves  that  no  one 
else  does.  We  have  two  excellently  equipped  cars  out- 
side. Now  I  propose  either  that  you  accompany  us 
or  tell  us  here  and  now  the  whereabouts  of  our 
property." 

The  other  man,  to  whom  my  eyes  had  turned  for  the 
first  time,  now  faced  me,  and  I  gave  a  little  gasp.  It 
was  the  man  I  had  seen  on  the  street  corner  the  night 
before. 

Knatchbull  had  advanced  upon  me  as  he  spoke, 
and  I  was  giving  back,  trying  to  still  the  shriek  in 
my  throat.  For  the  first  time  in  my  life  I  felt  fear, 
actual,  heart-stopping  fear.     I  could  not  explain  the 


THE  BUREAU  OF  MISSING  ARTICLES    169 

fear.  It  was  the  sort  one  has  in  nightmares.  And 
as  I  backed  to  the  door  and  he  reached  for  me,  the 
shriek  came — an  ear-piercing  one. 

"Tam!    Tam  McNab!"  I  called.     "Tarn!    Help!" 

The  other  man  was  quick  to  act.  He  flung  open  the 
door,  put  two  fingers  to  his  mouth,  and  whistled 
shrilly.  At  the  same  moment,  old  Tam,  who  had 
heard  my  shriek  from  the  kitchen,  came  runnings 
through  the  dining  room.  Just  as  Knatchbull  reached 
for  me,  I  turned  and  ran  almost  into  Tam's  arms. 

"Tam,"  I  sobbed,  "help  me!  Help!"  And  I  ran 
behind  him  and  around  the  dining-room  table.  Then 
I  saw  Tam  throw  up  both  hands  as  I  turned.  Knatch- 
bull had  drawn  a  pistol,  which  he  held  pointed  toward 
him. 

"Get  out  of  here,  my  man!"  he  said  in  that  same 
silky  way.  "And  think  yourself  lucky  I  didn't  fire 
this  time.     Be  off  with  you  now !" 

He  came  at  him,  and  Tam,  thoroughly  and  com- 
pletely intimidated,  backed  before  him  and  out  through 
the  swinging  doors  to  the  kitchen,  where  I  had  a 
momentary  glimpse  of  the  cook's  ashen-white  face 
and  arms  fallen  helpless  to  her  sides.  Knatchbull 
stepped  past  him,  locked  the  door,  and  pocketed  the 
key.  I  heard  the  scrambling  of  many  feet,  and  saw 
that  the  other  doorway  was  crowded  with  men,  six 
of  them  including  my  active  enemy's  companion;  for 
the  most  part  undersized,  pasty-faced  men  with  wide» 
ugly  grins. 

Only  the  boxed-in  stairway  that  led  upstairs  re- 
mained as  an  avenue  of  liberty,  and  to  rea'ch  that  I 


I70  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

must  pass  them.  But  now,  and  too  late,  my  stepfather 
took  it  upon  himself  to  interfere. 

"Gentlemen — gentlemen!"  he  began  in  his  high, 
quavering  voice.  But  they  heeded  him  no  more  than 
they  would  a  fly.  Several  pairs  of  hands  caught  him 
and  forced  him  in  a  chair,  a  number  of  voices  advising 
him  to  keep  his  seat  and  keep  quiet  if  he  knew  what 
was  best  for  him, 

"One  of  you  get  outside  and  see  those  servants  don't 
make  any  break  to  get  away,"  said  Knatchbull  harshly. 
"Now,  miss,  which  is  it  to  be?  Shall  we  take  you 
with  us  or  will  you  give  up  the  book?" 

I  told  them  I  would  not  give  up  the  book. 

"Very  well,"  he  said.  "Now  forgive  me  if  I  don't 
take  your  word,  but  I  am  going  to  search  you.  If  I 
do  not  find  what  I  want  you  go  with  us.  Take  hold 
of  her,  two  of  you — ^you,  Wagner,  and  you,  Berthold ! 
Hold  the  little  vixen  tight.  We'll  soon  see  whether 
she's  lying  or  not." 

To  his  credit  I  will  say  stepfather's  gorge  rose  at 
that.  He  was  on  his  feet  in  an  instant.  But  a  brutal 
blow  from  one  of  the  men  who  had  come  forward 
sent  him  sprawling. 

I  seemed  to  be  smothering.  I  had  read  of  such 
happenings  in  the  newspapers — the  maltreating  of 
women  and  old  men  at  the  hands  of  the  Teutons.  But 
I  had  read  it.  No  doubt  I  thought  I  believed  it,  but 
actually  understanding  something  from  undergoing  it 
is  far  different  from  "believing." 

Stepfather,  with  an  inarticulate  protest,  raised  him- 
self on  hands  and  knees.     Then  the  latent  brutality 


THE  BUREAU  OF  MISSING  ARTICLES    171 

in  the  others  had  an  object.  A  thing  happened  that 
made  me  try  to  cover  my  face  with  my  hands,  forget- 
ful that  each  hand  was  pinioned. 

Another  of  the  men  aimed  a  vicious  kick  at  the  old 
man's  head.  He  aimed  accurately.  Stepfather  fell 
flat  on  his  face,  gave  a  convulsive  movement  or  two, 
then  lay  still.  At  the  same  moment  the  man  who  had 
kicked  him  pitched  forward  also  on  his  face.  He 
also  lay  still.  I  could  see  the  others  stare,  astounded, 
about  them. 

Then,  if  only  the  ethics  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  would 
have  permitted,  the  boy  who  had  fired  the  shot  might 
have  remained  in  the  darkness  of  the  boxed-in  stair- 
way. It  v/as  evident  that  with  a  silencer  on  his  weapon 
he  could  have  killed  as  many  as  he  liked  before  they 
had  an  idea  of  where  their  enemy  was.  But  no !  He 
must  show  himself  now,  his  pistol  held  before  him,  as 
he  stepped  from  the  stairway  to  the  room. 

"You  dogs!"  he  cried.  "Do  you  think  this  is  Bel- 
gium that  you  can  treat  old  men  and  women  that 
way?    Let  go  her  wrists  before " 

But  instead,  Knatchbull  whirled  around  on  him.  He 
had  enough  personal  courage,  I  must  admit  that  much. 
The  boy  dodged  back  to  his  stairway.  He  dared  not 
fire  at  Knatchbull  when  I  stood  directly  in  the  line  of 
fire.  My  enemy  had  no  such  reason  for  staying  his 
hand,  and  I  heard  a  suppressed  groan  from  the  stair- 
way;  but  before  the  nearest  man  could  reach  it  he,  too, 
stumbled  back,  clutching  at  his  breast. 

The  second  man  got  nearer,  but  not  very.  Again 
I  heard  the  low  whine  of  a  bullet  from  overhead,  and 


173  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

the  second  man  flattened  himself  against  the  side  of 
the  wall,  his  face  as  white  as  milk,  his  knees  sagging 
under  a  weight  hard  to  uphold.  Presently  he,  too, 
slid  down  and  lay  still. 

But,  meanwhile,  KnatchbuU  acted.  Throwing  over 
the  center  table  and  pushing  it  before  him,  his  pistol 
thrust  out  at  one  side,  he  poured  shot  after  shot  into 
the  darkness  of  the  stairway.  I  heard  a  strange  sound, 
then  the  senseless  body  of  the  boy  came  slipping  dowrt 
the  stairs  and  lay  sprawling  near  that  of  stepfather's. 

Of  what  happened  after  I  have  only  that  remem- 
brance one  has  of  dreams — bad  dreams.  I  was  handled 
and  hurried  and  finally  hustled  into  the  motor  car. 
Once  there,  overcome  by  the  horror  of  it  all  and  by 
my  impotent  hate  for  its  perpetrators,  I  fought  like 
the  vixen  KnatchbuU  had  said  I  was. 


CHAPTER  V 

Tells  How  Yorke  Norroy  Found  a  Wounded  Bo\ 
TO  Tell  Him  of  a  Kidnapped  Girl 

IT  was  hardly  half  an  hour  later  that  Yorke  Norroy, 
with  his  assistants,  arrived  at  Cove  Cottage  to 
find  that  the  frantic  cook  and  gardener  had  finally 
secured  a  doctor  and  were  still  endeavoring  to  connect 
with  the  local  constabulary.  From  their  lips,  partic- 
ularly the  gardener's,  he  heard  as  much  of  the  story 
as  they  knew.  Neither  old  Asbjomson  nor  young 
Petersham  was  dead,  but  the  man  was  in  worse  case 
even  than  the  boy,  the  doctor  said  gravely,  though  the 
latter  had  been  probed  for  three  steel- jacketed  bullets 
and  there  were  signs  that  several  more  had  passed 
through  his  body.  Yet  he  had  youth  and  health  to 
help  him  through,  while  the  old  man  had  neither,  and 
the  kick  from  the  heavy  boot  toe  had  resulted  in  a 
fracture  to  which  diagnosis,  after  a  closer  inspection, 
the  doctor  added  concussion. 

The  fingers  of  Yorke  Norroy  tightened  until  the 
skin  over  his  knuckles  was  strained.  He  arose  and 
tramped  the  room.  Carson  Huntley  turned  from  star- 
ing away  into  nothingness,  and  noted  his  chief,  won- 
dering what  the  world,  that  knew  Norroy  only  as  an 

173 


174  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

idler  and  cynic,  would  say  to  this  grim- faced  man 
whose  features  were  drawn  so  ominously  as  he  sat 
by  the  boy's  bed. 

"I'm  responsible,"  Huntley  groaned.  "That  damned 
alarm  clock !" 

But  Norroy  did  not  seem  to  hear  him.  He  sat  like 
a  man  of  stone  through  the  long  hours,  and  it  was 
evening  before  he  relaxed  sufficiently  even  to  speak, 
and  then  only  to  refuse  the  supper  that  had  been  pre- 
pard. 

"You  go,  Carson,"  he  said;  "you  and  the  others." 

So  it  happened  that,  when  young  Petersham  awoke 
in  the  dark  to  the  realization  of  his  terrible  pain,  it 
was  Norroy  who  prepared  the  injection  of  morphia 
which  gave  him  relief  from  torture;  it  was  Norroy's 
hand,  as  gentle  as  a  woman's,  that  put  a  cooling  drink 
to  the  boy's  hot,  fevered  lips. 

"Who — who "   gasped   Petersham;   then   sank 

back  with  a  great  sigh,  for  Norroy,  shielding  Peter- 
sham's eyes  from  the  light  with  one  hand,  held  the 
momentary  glow  of  an  electric  torch  to  his  own  face. 

"You— chief— you?    Thank  God!" 

"You  must  be  quiet,  boy." 

"I  can't  be  quiet  until  you  know." 

"Be  quiet  until  the  medicine  eases  you,  anyhow. 
Then  you  shall  talk,  boy,  if  you  like." 

Norroy's  hands  felt  cool  and  fresh  as  they  held 
Petersham's,  hot  and  dry.  The  boy  lay  back  until 
the  merciful  drug  deadened  the  worst  of  his  pain, 
until  he  seemed  to  float,  disembodied,  between  the 


THE  BUREAU  OF  MISSING  ARTICLES    175 

ceiling  and  the  bed.  His  clutch  on  Norroy's  hands 
seemed  all  that  held  him  to  earth. 

The  cooling  fingers  of  one  hand  were  passed  over 
the  feverish  forehead ;  the  boy  still  clutched  the  other. 
Then,  in  the  darkness,  Norroy  heard  the  whole  story. 
And  as  he  heard,  it  was  he  who  clutched  the  boy. 

When  Petersham  had  finished  Norroy  gently  re- 
leased him  and  crossed  the  room.  Not  once  did  he 
cross,  back  and  forth,  but  a  full  twenty  times.  And 
when  Carson  Huntley  entered  again  he  found  his  chief 
standing  in  the  room's  center,  both  hands  held  taut  to 
his  sides. 

"Yorke,  Yorke !"  said  Huntley  in  an  excited  whisper. 
"News  from  town !  I  had  Furnival  on  the  phone  just 
now.  It  seems  the  police  have  been  trying  to  steal 
a  march  on  us.  The  squad  caught  a  man  carrying  a 
T.  N.  T.  bomb  last  night  and  trying  to  get  near  the 
club  with  it.  Without  letting  us  know,  they  took  him 
to  headquarters,  and,  I  suppose,  gave  him  their  nreci- 
ous  third  degree." 

"Which,  for  once,  was  much  too  good  for  him," 
said  Norroy  grimly. 

"Just  what  I  thought  It's  providential,  because 
it's  a  thing  we  wouldn't  have  done  ourselves." 

**We  would  now.  After  this,"  said  Norroy,  nodding 
toward  the  boy  on  the  bed.  "After  what  happened 
here,  well " 

"He's  confessed  to  being  a  member  of  a  league " 

Norroy  waved  his  hand  wearily. 

"But  wait,"  said  Huntley  hurriedly;  "that's  not  all. 
He  has  also  admitted  that  he  was  an  employee  of 


176  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

Henricus  Voegel,  and  that  he  received  his  orders  there. 
What  do  you  think  of  that?'* 

Huntley's  voice  rose  in  triumph.  Norroy  was  in- 
stantly alert,  eager-eyed. 

"Has  this  been  kept  quiet?" 

"No  one  knows  but  the  captain  in  charge  of  the 
bomb  squad.  He  found  himself  over  his  head  after 
that  confession.  Voegel  holds  a  pat  hand  in  politics, 
controls  Lord  knows  how  many  German-American 
votes.  The  captain  knows  more  than  he  wants  to. 
Enough  to  lose  him  his  official  head  if  he  acts,  I'm 
afraid,  with  an  election  not  far  off.  Damn  these  cheap 
politics !  So  he's  put  it  up  to  the  department  of  justice, 
and  they've  just  phoned  Fumival,  asking  how  this 
affects  us  and  how  far  we've  gone." 

Norroy's  eyes  had  narrowed. 

"Have  them  hold  him  incommunicado  in  a  cell. 
Federal  detention  quarters,"  he  commanded  crisply. 
"Let  it  seem  to  leak  out  through  the  newspapers  that 
an  unknown  man,  carrying  high  explosives,  blew  him- 
self up  while  trying  to  escape  from  the  bomb  squad 
in  the  vicinity  of  Delaroche  Street.  The  river's  near 
there ;  have  it  supposed  to  happen  while  he  was  headed 
for  the  river — have  him  nearly  reach  it.  That  will 
relieve  any  apprehension  on  Mr.  Voegel's  part  as  to 
State's  evidence.  Henricus  Voegel,  eh?  His  name 
must  be  in  one  of  the  books  yet  to  be  found.  So  far 
we've  only  unearthed  subordinates,  it  seems.  Henricus 
Voegel!" 

He  arose  and  took  Huntley's  hand. 

"Henceforth,"  he  said,  again  glancing  toward  the 


THE  BUREAU  OF  MISSING  ARTICLES    177 

bed  where  the  boy  slept.    "Henceforth,  Carson,  it's  a 
personal  affair  between  them — and  me !" 

And  Carson  Huntley,  meeting  his  gaze,  never  before 
remembered  so  much  menace  in  the  manner  of  Mr. 
Yorke  Norroy. 


BOOK  FOUR 
HIS  COUNTRY  OR  HIS  LIFE? 


CHAPTER  I 
The  Man  Who  Fled  From  Himself 

ETHAN  VAN  CORLEAR  had  heen  plodding  the 
streets  since  sundown,  hands  thrust  deep  into 
his  pockets;  his  fingers  were  pressed  hard 
against  the  lining.  Had  he  lifted  the  soft  Tyrolese 
hat,  which,  when  bought  in  the  Alps,  where  men  wear 
such  gear,  and  at  a  time  when  his  spirits  were  in  accord 
with  it,  had  sported  the  cockiest  kind  of  a  cock's 
feather  at  the  back,  another  indentation  would  have 
showed  a  red  line  just  above  ears  and  brows,  for  the 
hat  was  never  meant  to  be  pulled  down  so  savagely 
and  so  low.  And,  though  it  was  midwinter  and  a 
sullen,  lowering  sort  of  day,  with  ever  and  anon  a 
cutting  breeze  that  sent  the  snow  sliding  down  slanting 
roofs  and  dispersed  it  elsewhere.  Van  Corlear  wore 
both  coat  and  overcoat  open  that  he  might  better  thrust 
those  hands  deep  in  those  trousers  pockets,  from  which 
he  had  not  removed  them  since  the  sun  had  set. 

For  it  was  at  this  hour  that  he  had  come  tearing 
forth  from  the  front  door  of  that  house  built  when 
Van  Corlear  Square  was  the  Van  Corlear  estate.  It 
had  been  the  Van  Corlear  "bouwerie,"  or  farm,  in  the 
old  Dutch  days  when  Manhattan  still  wore  knicker- 
bockers. 

I8i 


i82  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

The  Van  Corlear  "mansion"  which  replaced  the  old 
New  Amsterdam  farmhouse  was  the  only  home  Ethan 
had  ever  had,  or  was  ever  likely  to  have.  He  occupied 
the  same  attic  room  under  the  eaves  that  had  been 
his  at  the  age  of  eight,  when  they  transferred  him 
thence  from  the  nursery.  It  had  been  his  at  eighteen, 
when  he  had  returned  home  from  "prep"  school  with 
high  honors  to  read  law  with  his  father  and  his  uncle, 
as  his  brother  had  done  a  few  years  before.  Then, 
in  good  time,  both  were  to  make  good  the  inference 
to  be  drawn  from  certain  gilt  letters,  the  first  of  a 
flock  on  similar  signboards  attached  to  either  side  of 
the  carven  pilasters  of  an  ancient  office  warren  on  an 
old  street,  the  rear  windows  of  whose  upper  stories 
overlooked  the  Battery  and  both  rivers: 

VAN  CORLEAR  &  VAN  CORLEAR, 

Attorneys — Solicitors. 

Executors  East  River  Estates. 

Such  a  sign  had  first  shone  forth  bravely  bedecked 
in  gilt,  an  even  hundred  years  after  His  High  Mighti- 
ness Peter  Stuyvesant  first  originated  East  River 
Estates  to  be  "executed."  Then  there  had  been  a 
yew  tree  before  the  office  windows  and  gardens  to 
many  of  the  houses,  and  after  "Van  Corlear  &  Van 
Corlear"  appeared  the  now  evanished  "Barristers  of 
the  Middle  Temple."  That  had  disappeared  when 
**Van  Corlear  &  Van  Corlear"  moved  into  their  present 
quarters,  built  around  a  garden  in  imitation  of  one 


HIS   COUNTRY   OR  HIS  LIFE?  183 

of  the  old  London  Inns  of  Court,  each  office,  after 
one  entered  the  main  door  and  crossed  a  corridor, 
facing  a  gay  pleasaunce  of  green  in  the  center,  a  stair- 
way to  every  two  signs  leading  to  an  upper  story. 

That  was  how  old  "Van  Corlear  &  Van  Corlear'* 
was.  Which  is  older  than  any  one  now  alive.  Third, 
fourth,  and  fifth  floors  had  been  added  to  the  old 
*'Inn"  just  before  Lincoln's  election,  and  just  after 
the  birth  of  Ethan  van  Corlear's  father,  who  was  Elam 
van  Corlear,  the  fifth,  as  Ethan's  brother  was  Elam, 
the  sixth.  The  eldest  male  Van  Corlear  was  always 
Elam,  the  second  son  Ethan,  and  the  two  brothers, 
or  three  or  four  as  might  be,  were  always  "Van  Cor- 
lear &  Van  Corlear." 

The  sign,  we  repeat,  still  read  "Van  Corlear  &  Van 
Corlear,"  but  there  was  only  one  brother  in  it  now 
and  that  one  was  not  he  who  since  sundown  had 
hurled  himself  across  the  face  of  New  York,  hands 
pressed  hard  against  his  pockets.  No,  despite  his  bril- 
liant record  at  St.  Paul's,  the  ease  of  his  admittance 
to  the  New  York  bar  after  an  exemplary  showing  at 
examinations,  his  auspicious  start,  Ethan  Van  Corlear, 
the  sixth  of  that  name,  was,  technically,  an  outcast, 
and  Van  Corlear  &  Van  Corlear  had  never  been 
notorious  for  outcast  alliances. 

Yet  the  name  of  Ethan,  the  sixth,  had  surpassed 
that  of  all  the  other  Ethans;  of  all  the  Elams,  too. 
Not  only  for  his  brilliant  work  as  a  lawyer,  but  for 
reasons  utterly  extraneous  to  his  membership  in  the 
firm.  Ethan,  the  sixth,  it  had  been  who  had  brought 
out,  anonymously,  at  first,  that  extraordinary  series 


i84  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

of  stories  concerning  the  New  York  of  other  days 
which  some  said  surpassed  both  in  verity  and  in  art 
similar  effects  by  Irving.  From  these  had  been  made, 
in  collaboration  with  another,  the  play,  "In  Old  New 
York,"  which,  after  being  played  everywhere  in 
America  and  Europe,  had  been  studded  with  songs 
and,  as  an  operetta,  played  everywhere  once  again. 

Ethan  van  Corlear,  the  sixth,  Captain  Ethan  Cor- 
lear  of  the  "Dandy  Seventeenth";  Ethan  the  author, 
"the  man  who  had  everything,"  as  somebody  had  said, 
and  said  truthfully,  "wit,  family,  social  position,  fame, 
and  his  feet  formally  set  upon  the  road  to  riches." 
But  that  was  the  trouble!  Ethan  had  too  much  and 
he  had  got  it  too  easily.  And,  as  easily  as  he  got  it, 
he  lost  it. 

His  story  is  the  story  of  too  many  brilliant  youths 
who,  having  crowded  a  decade  into  a  year,  think  they 
can  crowd  a  century  into  a  decade.  After  his  play's 
instantaneous  and  incredible  success,  too  many  man- 
agers wanted  plays  from  Ethan  van  Corlear,  too  many 
ladies  aided  and  abetted  the  author  to  preen  his  pea- 
cock plumes,  too  many  boon  companions  filled  the  cup 
already  full  to  overflowing,  too  many. 

The  wit  that  once  came  without  effort  soon  required 
the  wine  that  once  was  only  a  foretext  for  graceful 
toasts.  The  wine  was  soon  succeeded  by  whisky. 
When  whisky  is  hourly  needed  to  whip  up  flagging 
spirits  and  deaden  an  aching  head,  the  end  is  soon 
in  sight.  And  the  end,  for  Ethan  van  Corlear,  began 
in  the  sanitarium. 

After  drink  came  drugs.     And  now  was  the  real 


HIS  COUNTRY  OR  HIS  LIFE?  185 

end — ^the  end  of  ends.  Earlier  in  the  day  on  which 
we  take  up  his  tale,  Ethan  van  Corlear  had  seen  him- 
self rehabilitated,  dying  in  Mexico  at  the  head  of  his 
company,  his  faults  forgotten,  his  virtues  revived  and 
made  immortal — only  to  be  refused  by  the  surgeons  as 
"physically  unfit"  for  active  service,  and  discharged 
from  the  national  guard  on  the  eve  of  his  regiment's 
departure  for  "the  border." 

The  examining  surgeons  had  not  given  the  real 
reason ;  but,  deep  down,  Ethan  van  Corlear  knew  they 
knew.  And  so  Elam  van  Corlear  was  to  represent 
Van  Corlear  &  Van  Corlear  abroad  as  he  now  repre- 
sented it  at  home.  Both  bits  of  bitter  knowledge  and 
their  cumulative  concomitants  had  been  the  cud  that 
Ethan  van  Corlear  was  chewing  before  the  study  fire, 
when  his  elder  brother,  in  uniform,  passed  him,  laid 
a  consoling  hand  on  his  shoulder,  then  departed  up- 
stairs to  pack. 

And  Ethan,  brought  raging  to  his  feet,  was  also 
about  to  go  upstairs  to  unpack,  among  other  things, 
the  syringe  for  the  use  of  which  he  now  felt  the 
insistent  urge,  the  need  for  the  drug  it  would  carry 
through  his  veins  stirring  his  listless  blood  to  life 
again.  But,  at  the  very  instant  when  it  lay  in  his 
hand,  charged  and  ready  to  use,  he  was  overcome  with 
a  violent  antipathy  for  it — this,  the  cause  of  his  coun- 
tr>^'s  refusal  of  him,  the  reason  why  he  could  not,  in 
serving  a  worthy  cause,  redeem  himself. 

He  had  cast  the  little  shining  instrument  from  him, 
seized  hat  and  coat,  and,  as  has  been  told,  hurled 
himself  into  the  streets  once  more  to  struggle  against 


i86  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

this  slavery,  the  shackles  of  which  galled  as  would 
those  of  the  most  shameful  prisoners.  Since  then  he 
had  walked — and  walked — and  walked. 

And  now,  at  last,  he  was  returning,  vanquished,  to 
his  home  in  Van  Corlear  Square,  not,  it  is  true,  to 
kiss  his  enslaver  as  once  he  might  have  done,  believing 
himself  richer  by  her  acquaintance;  but,  unwillingly 
or  not,  to  yield  himself — because  he  must! 

It  was  then,  as  he  made  his  way  with  shoulders 
hunched  high,  and  head  bent  low,  feet  that  shuffled 
and  eyes  that  sought  the  ground,  that  something 
hurtled  through  the  air  and  fell  directly  at  his  feet. 
He  stooped  to  pick  it  up  as  one  who  does  a  thing 
not  because  he  wishes  to  do  so,  but  because  his  dulled 
brain  is  nmning  in  usual  channels.  He  was  hardly 
conscious  of  brushing  aside  Miss  Clovis  Clarke  as 
he  stooped;  he  was  utterly  unconscious  of  her  as  he 
straightened  up  and  turned  the  pages  of  the  book  he 
had  picked  up  in  the  lamplight. 

For,  when  he  read  name  after  name  and  found  all 
German,  and  had  glanced  at  the  house  and  assured 
himself  it  was  that  one  whose  inhabitants,  alone  of 
all  those  in  the  square,  were  unkown  and  usually  aloof, 
and,  yes,  he  remembered  now,  extremely  foreign,  he 
snapped  the  book  shut  and  started  off  hurriedly. 

For  once  he  was  the  Ethan  van  Corlear  of  old, 
who  leaped  from  theory  to  truth  by  a  brilliant  burst  of 
intuition.  Forgotten  for  the  moment — momentarily 
at  least — was  his  necessity,  the  load  under  which  he 
labored.  He  only  knew  that  it  seemed  as  if  the  Lord 
God  had  given  him  a  final  chance  to  be  the  almost 


HIS  COUNTRY  OR  HIS  LIFE?  187 

forgotten  man  of  yesteryear — unlike  the  other  Ethan 
— a  man  his  country  needed. 

He  passed  his  home  without  a  look.  That  was  not 
the  place  to  go  if  this  book  meant  what,  vaguely,  he 
surmised  it  to  mean.  By  no  means.  Where  to  go  he 
did  not  exactly  know.    But  not  home. 

As  he  half  walked,  half  ran,  he  was  not  surprised 
to  discover  that  some  stranger  was  following  him. 


CHAPTER  II 
The  Man  Who  Pursued  Him 

TO  Ethan  the  drug  was  meat  and  drink,  the  love 
of  women,  of  home,  of  parents — of  everything 
— all  rolled  in  one.  Yes,  and  also  it  held  the 
great  hate  that  one  who  has  been  worthy  has,  when, 
willy-nilly,  he  loves  an  unworthy  woman ;  who,  crying 
out  against  himself  all  the  while,  is  yet  drawn  to  her 
side  as  the  steel  is  drawn  by  the  loadstone. 

But  the  man  who,  once  he  had  read,  surmised  so 
brilliantly  and  hurried  off  so  fast,  was  one  to  whom 
slavery  was  unknown;  was  the  true  Ethan  van  Corlear, 
whom  once  everybody  had  known.  The  change  was 
indeed  no  less  than  a  miracle;  there  is  but  one  word 
to  describe  it — transformation. 

He  did  not  enter  the  house  of  the  Van  Corlears 
for  a  very  good  reason.  If  the  book  was  anything 
of  the  sort  he  surmised  it  vaguely  to  be,  then  to  retreat 
with  it  into  his  own  house  was  only  to  invite  an  assault 
later  in  the  night. 

This  belief  was  borne  out  by  the  very  evident  es- 
pionage of  the  man  who  was  in  hot  pursuit  of  him; 
a  man  Van  Corlear  had  first  seen  out  of  the  tail  of 
his  eye  as  he  passed  him  at  the  street  corner.     Van 

1 88 


HIS  COUNTRY  OR  HIS  LIFE?  189 

Corlear  had  noted  then  just  such  a  steady  glare  as 
a  lurking  leopard  might  have;  the  glare  that  would, 
in  the  leopard's  case,  have  preceded  a  leap  upon  his 
prey.  But  it  was  not  just  the  wisest  thing  for  any 
man  to  do  on  a  lighted  comer — leopard-like  inclined 
or  no ;  so  the  man  had  turned  and  followed,  and  was. 
Van  Corlear  believed,  only  waiting  for  the  opportunity 
to  indulge  his  leopard  proclivities. 

Something  subconscious  must  have  whispered  to  the 
old  Ethan  van  Corlear  that  the  mental  drive  of  the 
moment  must  soon  succumb  to  sheer  physical  necessity 
for  his  drug.  So  he  acted  as  promptly  as  might  have 
been  expected  of  the  old  Ethan  van  Corlear.  It  is 
possible  he  did  not  know  exactly  what  he  would  do 
when  the  three-foot  high  jars  of  red  and  green  liquid 
with  the  light  behind  them  advertised  the  old-time 
chemist's  shop  of  Albert  Cornelius  &  Son — an  estab- 
lishment almost  as  ancient  as  Van  Corlear  &  Van 
Corlear.  Such  an  establishment  had  stood  there  when 
Van  Corlear  Square  was  an  outlying  suburb  of  New 
York ;  when  there  had  been  an  inn  over  the  way  where 
the  stagecoach  stopped  and  let  down  its  ladder. 

Van  Corlear  knew  the  contemporaneous  Cornelius 
as  well  as  he  knew  anybody,  nowadays;  better  than 
he  knew  most  people,  for,  besides  having  played  ball 
with  him  as  a  boy,  it  was  to  Cornelius  that  he  came 
about  this  time  each  day  bearing  a  doctor  permit  for 
his  daily  need  of  the  drug.  Involuntarily,  Cornelius 
went  back  of  the  counter  and  began  to  put  up  the 
morphia  pellets,  to  paste  on  a  label  to  the  thin  tube. 

Van  Corlear  had  followed  him  back  of  the  counter; 


ipo  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

but  not  to  hand  over  the  prescription  in  his  pocket. 
For  the  Van  Corlear  whose  part  he  played  for  an 
all-too-brief  period  needed  neither  drink  nor  drugs. 

He  sat  down  at  the  little  desk  behind  the  partition. 
He  was  screened  from  the  sight  of  his  pursuer  in  this 
little  sanctum.  Grasping  a  pen,  Van  Corlear  selected 
an  envelope,  addressed  it  to  the  chief  clerk  of  the  office 
of  Van  Corlear  &  Van  Corlear  on  the  old  street  down- 
town ;  adding  to  one  comer  of  the  envelope,  "Put  into 
safe  until  called  for  by  Mr.  Ethan  van  Corlear."  And, 
in  case  this  might  be  overlooked  during  the  slitting 
open  of  a  shoal  of  letters,  he  rewrote  these  directions 
on  a  Cornelius  label,  wet  the  mucilaged  back,  and 
attached  it  to  the  book.  This  he  slipped  into  the 
envelope  and  sealed  it.  On  second  thoughts  he  took 
the  additional  precaution  of  using  the  red  sealing  wax 
with  which  the  chemist  made  air-tight  the  tops  of 
corked  bottles ;  dropping  a  great  blob  of  the  wax  upon 
the  envelope's  outer  flap  and  firmly  imbedding  therein 
that  which  represented  all  that  was  left  to  him  of  his 
vanished  glory — the  great  seal  ring  his  Uncle  Ethan 
had  worn  during  over  half  a  century  of  honorable 
service  to  the  State. 

"When  I  leave  here,  Corny,"  Van  Corlear  adjured 
the  druggist,  "slip  out  and  put  this  in  the  mail  box 
on  the  comer.     Promise !    It's  important !" 

The  kindly  chemist,  deeming  this  seriousness  only 
one  of  the  vagaries  of  a  user  of  drugs,  promised. 

"But  I  mean  immediately — as  soon  as  I  leave  here. 
I  have  a  good  reason  for  not  doing  it  myself.  Promise 
me  you'll  do  it  the  minute  I  leave  you." 


HIS  COUNTRY  OR  HIS  LIFE?  191 

"Oh,  all  right,  Mr.  Ethan,"  said  Cornelius  im- 
patiently. 

Even  in  Van  Corlear's  fallen  estate,  this  druggist 
and  son  of  druggists  could  not  call  otherwise  the  son 
of  the  house  of  Van  Corlear  &  Van  Corlear,  which 
house  had  been  the  patrons  of  the  house  of  Cornelius 
a  century  or  more.  There  is  tradition  even  in  New 
York. 

Cornelius  took  the  envelope,  laid  it  aside,  and,  tak- 
ing up  the  pen,  wrote  upon  the  label  of  the  tube. 
IJechanically,  Van  Corlear  gave  him  the  doctor's 
prescription.  As  soon  as  the  envelope  left  his  hands 
he  was  left  in  a  state  of  transition  between  the  two 
Van  Corlears.  And  when  the  tube  came  into  his 
hands,  he  sank  back  into  the  chair,  racked,  as  before, 
by  his  imperative  need.  Only  now  it  was  worse  than 
before ;  for  he  had  the  desire  of  the  previous  quarter 
hour  plus  that  which  had  accumulated  while  he  had 
played  the  part  of  the  Van  Corlear  of  yesterday. 

He  was  torn  by  a  terrible  yawn  that  pried  open 
his  mouth  as  with  a  pair  of  forceps.  The  great  gape 
that  ensued  stopped  his  vitals.  His  mouth  remained 
open  even  after  the  yawn  had  passed,  gripped  by  some 
power  of  inanition  which  made  it  impossible  for  him 
to  close  it.  He  sat  as  one  stricken  with  lockjaw, 
while  great  beads  of  perspiration  oozed  forth  from  his 
forehead  and  hung  there  in  fatty  drops,  and  the  mem- 
branes of  his  eyes  were  obscured  and  stung  by  a 
stream  of  salty  tears  that  came  without  volition  and 
without  emotional  cause. 

Indeed,  he  sat  as  one  paralyzed,  unable  to  move,  ta 


192  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

speak,  hardly  to  hear.  Cornelius*  voice  seemed  to 
come  from  some  vast  distance,  from  another  dimen- 
sion. Van  Corlear  could  not  see  him.  He  could  only 
sit  in  his  dumb,  motionless  misery — for  he  had  post- 
poned the  taking  of  the  drug  so  long  that  his  heart 
was  beating  barely  enough  to  keep  him  alive.  Had 
he  gone  on  without  what  he  needed  a  little  longer, 
he  would  have  known  first,  dementia,  then  a  night- 
marish coma,  then  death.  For  such  a  mistress  is 
Morphia,  she  holds  even  her  subjects'  lives  in  the 
balance. 

"I'll  fix  you  up,"  Cornelius  had  said  pityingly.  He 
knew  the  symptoms.  He  reclaimed  the  little  tube, 
dissolved  half  a  dozen  of  the  pellets,  drew  the  liquid 
into  a  syringe,  fitted  it  with  a  long  needle.  Then, 
unbuttoning  Van  Corlear's  coat  sleeve — for  he  still 
patronized  the  sort  of  tailor  who  scorns  buttons  with- 
out buttonholes — and  unfastening  his  cuff  link.  Cor-, 
nelius  bared  Van  Corlear's  arm  and  rubbed  a  tiny  spot 
with  alcohol  both  before  and  after  the  injection. 

As  the  ebbing  blood  was  quickened  by  the  anodyne, 
that  both  quieted  the  nerves  and  stimulated  them,  Van 
Corlear's  lower  jaw  relaxed,  his  teeth  met.  Gradually, 
he  was  moved  to  raise  his  arm  and  wipe  away  the 
stinging  perspiration  and  tears.  Then  he  closed  his 
eyes  until  he  should  be  a  man  again  instead  of  a 
wretched  wreck,  one  of  the  many  derelicts  engulfed 
by  the  city's  sands  of  pleasure. 

Presently  he  staggered  up,  for  the  strain  upon  his 
heart  had  been  terrific;  straightened  himself  and  held 
out  his  hand. 


HIS  COUNTRY  OR  HIS  LIFE?  193 

"Thanks,  Corny,"  he  said. 

"If  only  you  could  quit  it,  Mr.  Ethan,"  said  the 
other  dolefully,  taking  the  hand  and  returning  the 
remaining  pellets  in  the  tube. 

"If  only  I  could,"  said  Ethan  van  Corlear,  sixth, 
sternly.  "Yes.  Well,  I've  got  to  quit  or  die,  haven't 
I  ?    I  can't  stand  much  more  of  this " 

He  broke  off  abruptly. 

"Don't  forget  to  mail  that  as  soon  as  I  go  out,  will 
you,  Corny?" 

Cornelius  promised  again,  and,  gripping  himself 
with  something  of  his  old  form,  Ethan  van  Corlear 
steered  a  tolerably  true  course  down  the  aisle  between 
counters  laden  with  the  miscellany  common  to  chem- 
ists' shops,  and  went  out. 

The  man  was  waiting  for  him  on  the  other  side. 
Hardly  remembering  there  was  such  a  man,  Ethan 
van  Corlear  made  for  Van  Corlear  Square  as 
mechanically  as  a  homing  pigeon.  But,  before  he 
reached  his  home,  he  heard  the  sound  of  pistol  shots 
and  turned  toward  that  other  house  from  a  window 
of  which  the  book  had  fallen  to  the  bricks.  And  now 
from  a  little  distance  he  saw  what  few  have  seen  in 
that  quarter  of  New  York — what  appeared  to  be  a 
running  fight  between  men  within  and  outsiders  on 
the  pave.  True,  those  of  Norroy's  corps  carried 
silencers  on  their  weapons,  as  did  those  within,  but 
this  was  not  so  of  the  bomb  squad,  and  to  the  many 
flashes  that  lit  up  the  dark,  for  the  street  lamp  had 
been  smashed,  was  added  the  sharp  staccato  of  firing. 

Ethan  van  Corlear  turned  quickly  and  retraced  his 


194  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

steps.  Whatever  this  meant,  it  would  be  a  cowardly 
act  to  his  mother,  his  aunt,  and  his  young  sisters  to 
enter  their  house  under  such  circumstances;  followed 
as  he  was  by  one  of  these  very  men  who  did  not  scruple 
to  resort  to  violence  on  one  of  the  quietest  of  New 
York  streets;  especially  when  that  man  believed  him 
to  carry  an  article  apparently  of  some  value,  since  it 
had  caused  him  to  be  followed. 

No,  while  the  drug  held,  he  must  contrive  somehow 
to  shake  off  this  spy.  Van  Corlear  turned  and  went 
the  way  he  had  come.  From  the  corner  of  the  next 
street,  he  could  see,  in  the  pool  of  light  cast  by  the 
two  great  jars  of  red  and  green,  the  bareheaded  figure 
of  Cornelius  returning,  no  doubt,  from  the  mail  box. 

Van  Corlear  took  another  turn,  and  made  off  at  a 
rapid  pace.    The  long  chase  began. 


CHAPTER  III 

What  Was  Happening  Underground 

(Again  Miss  CLOv^s  Clarke  Takes  Up  the  Tale) 

BETWEEN  the  chapters  of  my  own  narrative, 
as  I  understand  it,  will  be  inserted  the  adven- 
tures of  others  who  were  involved  in  the  ad- 
venture of  "The  Black  Book."  At  least  it  was  so 
called,  although  really  it  was  only  a  black  leather  case. 
But  if  you  had  seen  it  on  a  library  shelf,  you  would 
have  believed  it  to  be  one  of  those  uninteresting 
volumes  in  black  morocco  published  by  Bible  societies 
for  Sunday-school  gift  books  and  entitled  "The  Bible 
in  the  Levant."  All  of  which  was  very  artfully  de- 
signed to  keep  hands  off  it,  should  it  by  any  chance 
go  astray.  I  am  sure,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  or 
any  of  my  acquaintance,  it  might  have  accumulated 
dust  for  ages.  There  would  have  been  no  fear  of  my 
taking  it  down  to  discover  that  it  was  in  reality  only 
a  dummy  made  to  conceal  four  thin  volumes  within; 
all  bound  in  the  same  way,  the  thin,  tough  paper  of 
each  covered  with  the  names  of  the  War  Lord's  emis- 
saries in  America. 

All  this  I  had  learned  from  the  boy  who  was  shot 

195 


196  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

down  before  my  eyes  in  his  attempt  to  rescue  me ;  the 
boy  whose  name  I  afterward  learned  was  Petersham, 
and  whose  previous  adventures  in  this  connection  I 
believe  precede  mine. 

It  was  this  that  had  been  chiefly  instrumental  in 
arousing  me  to  such  a  rage  that  I  put  up  a  perfectly 
impotent  fight  against  the  German  agents  who  had 
come  after  the  last  voliune  of  "The  Black  Book" 
which  I  had  found  and  hidden,  and  had  intended  to 
give  to  young  Mr.  Petersham;  representing  as  he  did 
my  own  country,  the  United  States,  of  course,  to 
which  the  book  I  had  found  would  be  of  immense 
value  in  locating  and  imprisoning  the  spies  and  traitors 
within  our  gates. 

In  the  earliest  part  of  my  story  I  mentioned  the 
rather  wild-eyed  man  who  stooped  and  picked  up  just 
such  another  book  as  the  one  that  came  into  my  pos- 
session; and  it  is  he  rather  than  myself  whom  this 
section  of  my  story  concerns. 

But  first  I  must  tell  how  I  came  to  be  in  the  position 
in  which  he  found  me  after  he,  too,  became  a  prisoner. 

I  have  already  said  that  I  fought  impotently  with 
those  who  had  shot  down  the  boy,  especially  with  the 
man,  Knatchbull — as  he  called  himself — for  whom  I 
had  conceived  a  feeling,  part  hatred,  part  horror,  which 
was  perhaps  the  strongest  passion  that  had  ever 
dominated  me.  I  felt  if  only  my  fingers  could  fasten 
on  his  throat,  God  would  give  me  the  strength  to 
cling  to  it  until  I  had  stifled  every  breath  of  air  within 
him.  This  was  sheer  nonsense,  of  course,  for  Knatch- 
bull was  a  powerful  man  and  I,  although  tramping 


HIS  COUNTRY  OR  HIS  LIFE?  197 

outdoors  and  open-air  exercise  in  general  had  given 
me  more  than  an  average  girl's  grip,  was  yet  a  mere 
weakling  compared  to  him.  Moreover,  there  were 
other  able  and  willing  pairs  of  hands  to  help  him,  and, 
in  the  end,  finding  I  was  not  to  be  discouraged  by 
ordinary  means,  one  of  them  struck  me  heavily  on  the 
back  of  the  head. 

I  remember  struggling  back  to  consciousness,  my 
head  hurting  horribly,  and  became  dimly  conscious  of 
the  interior  of  the  limousine  that  was  bearing  me  off 
— and  faint  glimmers  of  daylight  struggling  through 
the  places  where  the  drawn  curtains  of  the  car  bulged 
a  little  here  and  there.  The  faint  rays  of  an  overhead 
glow  lamp  showed  me  a  confusion  of  faces  bending 
over  me,  among  them  the  hateful  features  of  Knatch- 
buU. 

Evidently  I  had  shown  signs  of  returning  conscious- 
ness, for  he  was  ready  for  me;  their  dreadful  "effi- 
ciency" seemed  to  be  ready  for  everything.  I  heard 
his  voice,  as  from  a  distance,  telling  them  to  hold  me 
tight,  then  I  saw  a  knife  blade  gleam  in  Knatchbull's 
hand  and  describe  a  circle  downward  in  my  direction. 

No  doubt,  now  that  I  had  come  to  think  it  over, 
it  was  no  more  than  a  pocketknife;  for  it  was  used 
for  no  more  sinister  purpose  than  to  slit  my  sleeve. 
But  with  that  blade  descending  and  the  sudden  pain 
of  two  hands  on  either  side  fastening  on  me  like 
claws,  I  screamed  aloud.  Almost  immediately  I  felt 
a  sharp,  stabbing  pain  in  my  arm,  and  my  agonized 
eyes  beheld  Knatchbull's  saturnine  face  recede  from 
me,  wreathed  in  a  smile  of  satisfaction.    Again,  now 


ipS  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

that  I  consider  calmly,  I  know  that  the  sharp  stab 
came  from  nothing  more  deadly  than  a  needle,  the 
contents  of  which  sent  me  back  to  shadow  land. 

But,  as  it  happened,  I  believed  that  I  had  been  done 
to  death  with  a  murderous  knife  and  that  the  liquid 
which  had  escaped  from  the  needle  and  which  trickled 
down  my  arm  was  my  own  blood.  I  remember  scream- 
ing again  and  again  as  I  thought  the  tides  of  my  life 
began  to  ebb  away. 

"Her  heart  is  better,"  said  some  one  in  German.  I 
had  not  heard  this  voice  before  my  present  awakening. 
But,  during  the  time  I  played  possum,  I  had  heard 
hardly  any  other ;  so  many,  discouraged  expletives  had 
it  used,  so  many  directions  had  it  given.  I  was  sure 
its  owner  was  a  doctor. 

"What  is  it?"  I  heard  Knatchbull  ask,  surlily  enough. 

"One  hundred  and  fifteen.  Not  nearly  normal.  But 
a  little  while  since  it  was  over  one  hundred  and  eighty ; 
faster  than  I  could  count  it.  And  then  it  shot  down 
to  forty  and  began  to  go  lower,  which  is  as  bad.  "Vou 
should  be  careful  how  you  use  hypnotics  upon  pc  pie 
you  do  not  wish  to  kill.    What  was  it  ?" 

"Hyoscin,"  answered  Knatchbull  in  the  same  surly 
voice. 

"Hydrobromide  or  sulphate  ?" 

"I  don't  know.    There  it  is." 

Silence  for  a  moment;  then  I  heard  something  fall 
and  roll  around  in  what  was  evidently  paper. 

"That  is  where  it  belongs.  In  the  wastebasket.  I 
will  get  you  some  hydrobromide  hyoscin  which  is 
effective  in  homeopathic  quantities — almost.     Do  you 


HIS  COUNTRY  OR  HIS  LIFE?  199 

know  how  little  of  that  stuff  of  yours  is  necessary  to 
kill — to  kill?  A  tiny  quarter  grain,  no  more.  One 
quarter  of  a  grain  is  death." 

KnatchbuU  evidently  muttered  something  the  pur- 
port of  which  was  doubtless  as  to  how  I  was. 

"She'll  pull  through,  thanks  to  my  administration 
of  cactine.  Had  I  had  the  good  Berlinger  type  of 
digitalin,  I  would  have  been  spared  much  anxiety. 
A  pest  on  these  Yankees !  They  have  not  the  delicate 
drugs  we  use  in  the  fatherland,  and  since  the  British 
fleet  blockades  our  commerce  I  must  use  American 
products." 

He  spent  some  little  time  damning  American 
products  and  America. 

The  woman,  who  had  been  obeying  the  orders  of 
the  doctor,  and  whom  I  did  not  have  to  open  my  eyes 
to  know  for  a  nurse,  gave  a  little  exclamation.  Her 
hand  had  been  spanning  my  forehead,  a  finger  on  each 
of  the  veins  on  either  side. 

"It  is  one  hundred  now,  doctor !" 

"Oh,  yes,"  he  responded  ungraciously.  "I  knew 
her  out  of  danger  some  time  since.  I  go,  Herr  Knatch- 
buU; I  am  no  longer  needed.  And  for  my  sake  as 
well  as  your  own  avoid  hypnotics  and  use  anodynes. 
My  use  to  the  league  is  over  if  I  must  connive  at 
murder.     To-morrow  I  send  you  the  hydrobromide." 

"But  she  is  not  awake  yet,"  objected  KnatchbuU. 

"Soon  she  awakens,  I  promise  you.  Meanwhile  I 
leave  the  fraulein,  who  will  summon  me  again  if  there 
is  need.    You  can  depend  upon  her  secrecy." 

And,  giving  the  nurse  some  general  instructions. 


200  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

he  took  himself  off.  I  could  hear  something  clang 
to  after  him,  something  that  had  a  metallic  ring. 

An  iron  door ! 

It  was  with  great  difficulty  that  I  kept  my  face 
expressionless  and  my  breathing  rather  hurried  as  be- 
fore. The  nurse  went  paddling  softly  about  the  room 
until  KnatchbuU's  return,  when  the  iron  door  clanged 
open  and  shut  aagin.  I  could  hear  some  low-voiced 
conference  at  the  other  end  of  the  room,  which,  from 
what  I  could  judge  by  hearing,  must  be  a  chamber 
of  great  size,  since  people  could  remain  within  it,  yet 
be  inaudible  even  when  using  ordinary  low-voiced  con- 
versation. Evidently,  also,  it  was  dark,  for,  except 
when  the  nurse  snapped  on  what  must  have  been  a 
night-table  lamp  near  by  to  count  my  pulse  by  the 
wrist  watch  I  had  felt  brush  my  face  when  she  busied 
herself  about  me,  I  felt  my  eyelids  exposed  to  no  glare. 
Had  they  been  it  would  have  been  difficult  to  avoid 
winking  or  contracting  my  brows. 

The  next  I  heard  was  this  rather  ungracious  admis- 
sion from  KnatchbuU: 

"Yes,  I  suppose  you'll  have  to  eat  some  time,  so 
you  may  as  well  do  it  now.  I'll  watch  the  girl  until 
you  get  back." 

I  heard  him  moving  around  after  the  door  clanged 
again,  also  the  click  of  what  my  eyelids  immediately 
told  me  was  the  lighting  of  an  electric  lamp ;  then  came 
the  scratching  of  a  match,  after  which  I  smelled 
tobacco  smoke.  Evidently  from  the  creaking  of  a 
chair,  KnatchbuU  was  making  himself  comfortable. 

Silence  ensued. 


HIS  COUNTRY  OR  HIS  LIFE?  201 

After  some  moments  of  restless  indecision,  I  decided 
that,  as  the  light  did  not  annoy  me,  the  lamp  must 
be  shaded  and  at  some  distance,  since  that  one  the 
nurse  had  used  sufficed  for  the  part  of  the  room  where 
I  lay.  Therefore,  thought  I,  as  I  am  in  the  shadows, 
he  cannot  see  whether  my  eyes  are  open  or  shut.  I 
cannot  tell  you  why  I  continued  to  feign  unconscious- 
ness unless  it  was  that  I  hoped  that  at  some  unguarded 
moment,  believing  themselves  unheard  by  me,  some  one 
of  my  enemies  would  let  drop  some  bit  of  useful  in- 
formation. All  of  which  was  entirely  subconscious, 
for  I  remember  remaining  dormant  only  as  one  re- 
members the  inevitable,  the  only  thing  to  do.  No 
great  credit  is  due  anything  but  my  intuition,  therefore, 
for  what  I  learned  by  my  trick. 

But  to  return  to  the  moment,  I  now  opened  one 
eye  the  minimum  distance  one  can  unveil  one's  sight 
if  one  wants  to  see.  The  room  was  very  dark  except 
for  a  patch  of  light  which  was,  apparently,  behind  me, 
since  ahead  were  only  shadows.  These  presently  re- 
solved themselves  into  a  long,  low-roofed  room.  But 
not  quite  so  low  as  I  first  imagined,  for  I  had  no  more 
than  three  feet  of  head  space.  By  observing  the  con- 
struction of  the  opposite  side  of  the  room,  which  was 
narrow  although  long,  I  saw  why  this  was  so.  I  was 
not  in  a  bed,  but  a  bunk,  and,  opposite  me,  were  two 
bunks  of  the  same  type  built  into  the  wall.  They 
were  barely  visible,  however,  through  two  half -opened 
closet  doors;  so  that  evidently  these  were  what  are 
called  "press  beds,"  closed  in  when  not  in  use  to  repre- 
sent cupboards.     For,  when  I  looked  ahead,  I  saw 


203  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

that  such  another  door  swung  out  close  to  the  foot 
of  my  bunk;  another  must  therefore  be  at  my  back, 
which  accounted  for  the  minimum  amount  of  light 
from  the  electric  lamp  reaching  me. 

This,  and  no  more,  outside  of  the  little  table  near 
my  head  on  which  stood  the  other  lamp,  medicines, 
and  so  forth,  was  all  I  could  make  out  in  the  room. 
I  saw  no  windows  nor  any  door.  At  first,  because 
of  the  room's  peculiar  construction,  I  almost  fancied 
myself  in  a  moving  train,  then  deep  down  in  the  bowels 
of  a  ship.  But,  when  I  held  my  breath,  there  was  no 
iota  of  motion ;  so  I  was  forced  to  give  up  that  theory, 
which  I  did  quite  joyfully. 

It  was  bad  enough  to  be  kidnapped.  But  to  be 
smuggled  out  of  my  own  country  was  to  lose  the  last 
vestige  of  hope.  And  I  had  hope  enough.  I  knew 
from  the  boy,  at  the  remembrance  of  whose  fate  I 
stifled  an  involuntary  groan,  that  his  superiors  in  the 
service  knew  whence  he  was  bound  and  would  follow 
him  sooner  or  later  and  discover  the  crime  committed 
at  Cove  Cottage. 

Surely  they  would  find  something  there  to  send 
them  speedily  after  me.  I  had  read  many  tales  of 
the  great  detectives  who  discovered  clews  which  told 
them  the  whole  story  of  the  most  mysterious  murder 
and  identified  the  assailants  immediately.  And  from 
what  young  Petersham  had  told  me,  there  was  a  Mr. 
Yorke  Norroy  in  charge  of  this  business  of  "The  Black 
Book,"  and  he  was,  perhaps,  the  one  man  in  America 
of  whom  all  German  agents  had  a  wholesome  fear. 

I  was  absorbed  by  thoughts  of  this  kind  when  there 


HIS  COUNTRY  OR  HIS  LIFE?  203 

came  a  ringing  sound  from  that  end  of  the  room 
^vhere  Knatchbull  sat.  This  was  repeated  once,  once 
— twice — thrice;  once — twice;  it  was  as  though  one 
struck  the  door  with  a  small  iron  mallet.  I  heard 
Knatchbull  get  up  and  open  the  door. 

"Kraflft !"  he  said  suddenly. 

The  other  answered  him  in  an  excited  whisper. 
Knatchbull's  voice  rose  into  a  roar : 

"And  you  brought  him  heref" 

The  other  spoke  louder  now,  and  in  the  tones  of 
one  who  defends  himself. 

"Around  the  comer  in  a  cab.  I  didn't  dare  go  to 
Voegel's;  there  are  no  dark  streets  near  Riverside. 
We  can  carry  him  into  the  court  and  no  one  will  be 
the  wiser.  The  driver  is  Schweiss;  I  telephoned  for 
him  and  his  taxi  and  he  helped  me  put  him  in  and 
bring  him  here.  Come,  help  me  out  with  him.  Sup- 
pose he  comes  to  while  I'm  gone?" 

Knatchbull  cursed  him  at  some  length. 

"Well,  what  would  you  have  me  do?"  asked  the 
other  despairingly.  "I  didn't  dare  leave  him  alone 
anywhere  while  I  came  for  help.  And  he  hasn't  got 
the  book  on  him.    I  searched  him  from  the  skin  out." 

Knatchbull  asked  a  question  which  was  answered 
with  concentrated  venom  and  the  utmost  vehemence. 

"Yes,  I'm  sure;  certainly  I'm  sure.  Unless  you're 
sure  of  the  other  pair  who  went  ymir  way.  I  had 
seen  a  man  enter  the  house  whom  we  hadn't  been  told 
about.  W'd  been  told  to  expect  that  woman  with  him 
• — Flora  Reyes.  So  I  crept  up  on  the  house.  So  it 
happened  I  was  near  enough  to  see  the  window  raised 


304  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

and  a  firework  flung  out.  I  looked  up  and  saw  a  man 
at  the  lighted  window.  He  flung  something  out.  A 
moment  later  came  this  fellow,  who  was  passing  one 
way,  and  a  girl  and  an  old  man  passing  another ;  both 
stooped,  but  it  was  this  man  whom  I  saw  in  the  lamp- 
light turning  over  the  pages  of  one  of  the  little  books. 
I  followed  him " 

KnatchbuU  gave  him  no  more  time.  "Come  along,'* 
he  said.  "We'll  have  to  risk  it.  You're  sure  you  gave 
him  enough  stuff  to  keep  him " 

At  this  the  iron  door  slammed  and  I  heard  a  key 
turn  in  the  lock.  No  sooner  had  my  enemies  gone 
than  I  snapped  on  the  light  alongside  the  table.  In 
its  light  was  revealed  halfway  across  the  room  and 
near  a  writing  table  a  wastebasket  just  as  I  had  sup- 
posed from  the  sound  I  had  heard  when  the  doctor 
flung  away  the  vial  he  took  from  KnatchbuU.  In  a 
second  I  was  rummaging  therein  until  my  fingers 
closed  on  a  thin  little  tube.  As  I  was  in  a  nightdress 
and  none  of  my  clothes  were  in  sight,  not  even  my 
stockings,  I  clambered  back  into  the  bunk  and  thrust 
the  tube  far  down  below,  between  the  two  halves  of  a 
double  mattress.  My  intention  at  the  time  was  to 
watch  for  my  chance  to  put  some  of  this  very  powerful 
drug  into  some  food  or  drink  of  my  enemies.  It  was 
a  slim  chance,  but  it  was  better  than  nothing. 


CHAPTER  IV 

In  Which  Another  Prisoner  Enters 

(Miss  Clovis  Clarke  Continues) 

AFTER  breathless  waiting  on  my  part,  I  heard 
the  key  rattle  in  the  lock  and  a  straight,  spear- 
like shaft  of  light  cleaved  its  way  through  the 
enshrouding  darkness,  lighting  up  the  center  aisle  of 
the  room  between  the  two  rows  of  bunks.  I  saw  now 
what  I  had  not  seen  before,  and  what  accounted  for 
the  earthy  smell,  that  the  upper  reaches  of  the  room 
had  for  roof  and  walls  a  sort  of  soft,  chalklike  stone, 
or  commingling  of  clays,  which  was  prevented  from 
falling  down  by  a  bridgework  of  iron  stanchions  stand- 
ing upright  like  pillars,  to  which  were  bolted  flat,  iron 
crosspieces  which  extended  across  the  ceiling,  if  it 
may  be  so  called.  From  one  of  these  crossbeams  hung 
a  hexagonal-shaped  lantern  by  an  iron  hook  fastened 
to  an  overhead  ring.  Along  the  walls  on  gun  racks 
and  revolver  rests  was  a  veritable  arsenal;  ugly  steel- 
blue  automatics  of  the  Liiger  type,  long  of  barrel  and 
chunky  of  butt,  and  below  each  a  steel  skeleton  of  a 
rifle  stock  to  which  they  could  be  attached,  making 
them  the  more  deadly  at  long  distance.     Knowledge 

205 


2o6  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

of  this,  of  course,  came  later ;  at  the  time  their  purpose 
was  unknown  to  me.  Fewer  in  number  were  the  Krag- 
Jorgensen  carbines,  which,  standing  upright  in  the 
wooden  racks  with  their  broad  blade-hke  bayonet  at- 
tachments, looked  like  a  miniature  forest  of  spears. 
There  were  other  weapons,  also,  but  there  was  too 
little  time  before  the  ray  of  light  died  out  to  dis- 
tinguish just  what  they  were. 

Determined  to  continue  my  feigned  sleep  as  long 
as  I  was  allowed,  I  closed  my  eyes  as  I  heard  the  men 
slowly  advance  into  the  room.  Evidently  it  was  a 
third  man  who  carried  the  electric  torch,  and  from 
what  he  said,  and  his  eagerness  to  be  off  again,  I 
judged  that  he  was  a  sort  of  guard,  or  man  on  watch ; 
stationed,  I  supposed,  at  the  entrance  of  this  subter- 
ranean region. 

Knatchbull  growled  out  permission,  and  I  heard  the 
third  man  make  off,  clanging  the  door.  But  before  he 
did  so,  Knatchbull  and  his  companion  deposited  their 
burden  in  the  bunk  opposite,  and  knowing  their  backs 
must  be  turned  momentarily,  I  gave  a  furtive  look  in 
that  direction. 

They  happened  to  be  in  such  positions  that  they  hid 
the  man's  body,  but  left  his  head  exposed,  and  as  it 
was  turned  in  the  direction  of  the  light  I  saw  his 
face,  so  ghastly  white  with  eyes  so  glassy  and  wide 
open  that  I  thought  him  dead.  It  was  apparent  he 
was  not,  however,  for  Krafft,  kneeling  by  his  side, 
ear  to  his  heart,  gave  a  relieved  gasp  and  got  up. 
Knatchbull,  also,  who  had  been  taking  the  prisoner's 
pulse,  loosed  his  wrist,  grunting  something  that  was 


HIS  COUNTRY  OR  HIS  LIFE?  207 

confirmatory  of  Krafft's  action,  and  the  man's  hand 
dropped  limp  and  white  against  the  dark  wood  of 
the  bunk. 

It  was  evident  from  Krafft's  first  words  that  while 
they  had  been  out  of  the  room  he  had  told  KnatchbuU 
most  of  the  story  of  his  pursuit  of  the  prisoner;  for 
he  now  took  up  his  tale  somewhere  near  the  end,  after 
first  giving  an  apprehensive  glance  toward  me. 

They  left  me  for  that  region  back  of  my  bunk  where 
my  eyes  could  not  follow  them,  and,  after  more  strik- 
ing of  matches,  Krafft  said: 

"The  whole  affair  has  me  puzzled.  The  man  is  a 
mystery.  After  leading  me  that  merry  hell  of  a  chase 
all  over  town,  a  chase  that  lasted  a  good  seven  hours 
if  it  lasted  a  minute,  and  took  me  from  the  Battery 
to  the  Bronx,  from  the  East  River  to  the  Hudson, 
from " 

"You've  gone  into  all  that,"  interrupted  Knatchbull 
rudely.  "I'm  willing  to  concede  that  you  had  a  chase 
of  it.     But  what  happened,  man,  what  happened?" 

"This!"  continued  Krafft,  his  tone  somewhat  ag- 
grieved: "He  must  have  spent  his  last  cent  on  the 
taxicab  that  he  discharged  over  in  Chelsea  Village — 
on  Twenty-third  Street — for  when  I  saw  the  taxi  stop 
just  as  mine  was  about  to  turn  the  corner,  I  told  my 
driver  to  go  straight  ahead  and  I  paid  and  left  him 
in  the  shadow  of  the  next  street  while  I  went  on  foot 
toward  my  quarry.  In  that  busy  crosstown  street 
there  were  so  many  people  going  to  work  even  at  that 
€arly  hour  that  he  didn't  notice  me.     Besides  he  was 


2o8  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

looking  for  a  pursuing  taxicab.  Anyhow  he  was  deep 
in  an  argument  with  the  driver  as  to  the  fare. 

"  'It's  every  last  cent  I've  got,'  he  was  saying  as 
I  came  up,  'but  if  you'll  give  me  your  address,  I'll 
send  you  the  extra  dollar  or  so.  I  thought  I  had  more.' 
Well,  the  taxi  driver  took  it  finally,  and  gave  him  his 
address;  and  my  man  started  off  on  foot  to  go  back 
the  way  he  had  come,  still  keeping  an  eye  out  for  my 
taxicab. 

"Now,  as  I  told  you,  I  started  after  him  before 
twelve  o'clock  last  night  and  this  was  about  six  o'clock 
in  the  morning.  He  started  off  at  a  brisk  sort  of  trot, 
but  this  died  down  by  the  time  he  had  crossed  Seventh 
Avenue  to  a  sort  of  hurried  walk — painfully  hurried. 
He  couldn't  manage  to  keep  this  up  very  long  evidently, 
for  before  he  reached  Sixth  Avenue  he  sank  down  on 
the  lowest  one  of  a  flight  of  old  brownstone  steps 
and  sat  there  panting  and  perspiring  as  I  came  up. 

"Unluckily  enough  for  me,  or  luckily,  maybe,  there 
wasn't  a  soul  on  the  street  but  ourselves  and  no  con- 
venient doorway  to  dodge  into,  for  this  was  one  of 
those  old  neighborhoods  with  Dutch  stoops;  so,  when 
he  turned  his  eyes  in  my  direction,  I  knew  he  realized 
he  was  still  being  followed. 

"It  must  have  come  as  a  disappointment  to  him, 
believing  as  he  did  that  he  had  shaken  off  all  pursuit, 
for  he  got  up,  glaring  at  me,  goggle-eyed,  as  sick  look- 
ing a  man  as  ever  I  want  to  see. 

"  'Damn  you,*  he  said,  as  I  came  up  and  tried  to 
pass  on,  pretending  I  did  not  see  him.  His  fists  were 
clenched  and  he  raised  them  above  his  head  as  he 


HIS  COUNTRY  OR  HIS  LIFE?  209 

cursed  me.  For  a  moment  I  thought  he  was  going  to 
spring  at  me  and  I  felt  for  my  gun.  But  instead  of 
that,  his  fists  went  up  until  he  was  on  tip-toe,  then  he 
toppled  over  and  lay  as  still  as  a  dead  man. 

"The  taxi  I  had  used  was  still  following  me  at  a 
snail's  pace — I  had  ordered  the  chauffeur  to  do  so — 
and  now  I  signaled  it  to  make  haste.  The  street  was 
deserted.  It  was  too  early  for  any  but  the  main 
thoroughfares  like  Twenty-third  Street  to  be  popu- 
lated ;  so  the  driver  and  I  got  him  into  the  cab  without 
much  trouble. 

"  'Where  to  ?*  asked  the  driver. 

"Then  I  was  in  a  quandary.  I  did  not  know  how 
much  this  infernal  Norroy  and  his  crowd  knew.  In 
following  this  fellow,  as  I  told  you,  he  had  led  me 
back  to  Van  Corlear  Square,  where  I  saw  the  attack 
on  our  house,  and  I  couldn't  be  sure  how  many  other 
of  our  houses  were  known  to  them,  nor  how  many 
of  the  books  had  fallen  into  his  hands.  I  didn't  even 
know  who  this  man  was,  whether  he  was  a  stranger 
who  just  happened  to  pick  up  the  book— or  not.  I 
knew  a  few  moments  later  when  I  searched  him  in 
the  cab  and  found  no  book,  but  I  did  not  know  then ; 
so  I  took  a  desperate  chance  and  told  the  fellow  to  go 
to  my  own  place. 

"As  I  said,  as  soon  as  we  drove  off,  I  searched  our 
friend  here  and  found  no  book " 

"Where  was  it,  then?"  demanded  Knatchbull 
harshly. 

"That's  what  I  do  not  know,"  Krafft  replied.  "I've 
told  you  every  step  he  took  from  the  moment  he  picked 


210  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

it  up.  At  first  I  thought  he  might  have  left  it  at  the 
druggist's,  but  I  found  out  why  he  went  to  the  drug- 
gist's while  I  was  searching  him.    Here !" 

Evidently  he  must  have  held  up  something  for 
Knatchbull  to  see;  for  the  other  said  suddenly: 

"Morphia!" 

"Precisely,"  answered  Krafft,  "and  that  was  what 
was  wrong  with  him.  He  had  gone  too  long  without 
it.    That  was  why  he  collapsed." 

I  heard  Knatchbull  mutter  something  which  I  could 
not  catch,  and  Krafft  continued: 

"Well,  we  got  to  my  place,  and  the  driver  helped 
me  to  carry  him  in.  Fortunately,  I  have  the  first-floor 
flat  and  live  in  an  old-fashioned  house  converted  into 
apartments  and  minus  a  hallboy.  As  soon  as  I  got 
him  on  the  bed,  I  examined  the  label  on  this  tube  and 
gave  the  man  a  dose  of  twice  the  amount  specified. 
I  knew  I  was  taking  a  chance  of  killing  him,  but  a  man 
who  had  shown  his  dogged  determination  in  trying  to 
shake  me  off  and  who  had  been  clever  enough  to  ditch 
the  book  somewhere  without  my  seeing  it,  was  apt  to 
be  a  formidable  antagonist  once  he  was  restored  to 
normality.  I  figured  that  double  dose  would  bring 
his  heart  back  to  the  proper  beats  and  put  him  into  a 
drugged  sleep  on  top  of  it. 

"Well,  that's  about  all.  All  day,  not  daring  to  slip 
out  for  a  bite  of  food,  I've  watched  him,  sitting  along- 
side my  bed.  When  he  showed  signs  of  coming  to 
at  one  time,  I  gave  him  the  same  dose  as  before. 
Meanwhile,  I  managed  to  get  Schweiss  on  the  telephone. 
He  has  a  taxicab  and  a  driver's  license,  so  I  directed 


HIS  COUNTRY  OR  HIS  LIFE?  211 

him  as  soon  as  it  was  good  and  dark  to  come  and  help 
me.    He  did  so,  and  we  brought  him  here. 

"And  here  he  is,"  he  concluded,  needlessly  superero- 
gatory I  thought,  and  another  match  was  struck. 

There  was  a  long  silence;  then  I  heard  Knatchbull 
laugh.  There  may  be  uglier  laughs  than  KnatchbuU's, 
but  I  hope  never  to  hear  them.  There  was  something 
so  sinister  about  it  that  I  could  feel  the  surface  of 
my  skin  turning  to  goose  flesh,  a  chilly,  clammy,  itchy 
sensation,  an  experience  none  need  envy  me. 

Then  he  said: 

"Well,  two  of  the  books  are  safe  enough,  at  any 
rate.  That  girl  can't  reach  any  one  to  tell  where  she 
has  hidden  hers,  so  even  if  she  keeps  mum  to  us,  we're 
satisfied.    As  for  this  fellow " 

And  his  tone  grew  hard  and  ruthless: 

"He'll  tell  us  where  his  is,  within  the  next  twenty- 
four  hours.  Yes,  and  he'll  go  down  on  his  knees  to 
beg  us  to  listen  to  him.  That  book's  as  good  as  in  my 
pocket  now,  my  boy." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  asked  Krafft. 

When  Knatchbull  told  him,  a  shiver  shook  me  from 
head  to  toe  and  I  turned  my  face  to  the  wall.  Oh, 
God,  that  your  creatures  to  whom  you  have  given  souls 
can  sink  so  far  below  the  brute  beasts !  That  they  can, 
with  a  laugh,  inflict  upon  others  cruelties  impossible 
to  the  most  savage  of  animals.  And  as  I  lay  shivering 
and  clutching  my  sheets,  I  prayed  God  to  deal  with  this 
monster,  Knatchbull,  even  as  He  had  dealt  with  others 
of  his  kind. 

I  cannot  write  of  what  followed.     In  obedience  to 


SX3  THE  BLACK  BOOK  \ 

what  has  been  pointed  out  as  my  duty,  to  give  the 
pubHc  first-hand  evidence  that  will  greatly  assist  in 
arousing  indignation  against  alien  enemies  in  our 
midst,  I  have  related  as  best  I  can  past  experiences  for 
the  most  part  disagreeable  to  recall,  memories  that  will 
leave  me  easier  of  mind  when  forgotten. 

But  this !    Ah,  no !    Let  some  one  who  has  not  seen, 
only  heard,  set  it  down.    I  cannot !    I  cannot  !* 

*Miss   Clovis   Clarke's  narrative  is  continued  in   Book   V, 
Chapter  IV. 


CHAPTER  V 

Tells  of  a  Torture  Torquemada  Might  Have 

Envied 

VAN  CORLEAR  remembered  nothing  of  what 
happened  from  the  moment  when  his  spirit 
called  too  heavily  upon  his  flesh,  when,  fren- 
zied by  his  failure  to  shake  off  his  pursuer  and  for- 
getting his  weakness,  he  had  flung  both  fists  in  air 
meaning  that  they  should  fall  like  flails  upon  the  head 
of  his  enemy. 

As  blackness  blotted  out  his  surroundings,  his  last 
despairing  realization  was  that  he  had  made  a  mistake 
to  tempt  nature  a  second  time  after  his  warning  of 
the  night  before,  when  the  chemist,  Cornelius,  had 
come  to  his  assistance.  As  consciousness  returned  to 
him  finally,  he  wondered  who  had  played  Cornelius  to 
him  this  time,  for  he  felt  no  pain.  He  became  aware 
of  human  proximity,  and,  after  some  consideration  of 
the  sounds  that  reached  him,  was  convinced  that  the 
some  one  in  question  was  sobbing. 

He  opened  his  eyes.  Kneeling  by  his  bunk,  her 
face  hidden  in  her  hands,  was  a  girl  in  a  torn  silk 
waist.  He  could  see  the  rise  and  fall  of  her  shoulder 
blades  at  the  point  where  the  silk  separated. 

213 


ar-t  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

He  looked  around  him.  His  surroundings  differed 
in  only  one  respect  from  those  that  had  met  the  eyes 
of  the  sobbing  girl  upon  her  own  awakening.  The 
stands  of  arms  at  the  rear  of  the  room,  and  the 
weapons  suspended  on  the  walls  above  them,  had  been 
removed,  leaving  unspotted  places  in  the  film  of  dust 
that  covered  the  floor  and  the  wall  panels. 

Van  Corlear  coughed  gently.  The  girl  looked  up. 
That  pang  of  regret  that  always  seized  Van  Corlear 
at  the  remembrance  of  what  he  had  lost  through  the 
curse  that  lay  heavily  upon  both  his  soul  and  body, 
took  hold  of  him  as  her  eyes  shone  up  at  him  like 
twin  stars  through  autumnal  mists. 

Van  Corlear  reached  out  for  the  girl's  hand;  his 
touch  was  like  ice  to  her  dry,  hot  finger  tips. 

"Don't,"  he  soothed,  forgetting  himself  in  his  dis- 
comfort at  her  grief.  Gradually  she  subsided  into  only 
occasional  sobs  and  again  looked  up  at  him. 

Van  Corlear  thought  her  rarely  beautiful  even  with 
her  eyes  rimmed  with  the  red  of  weeping.  Her  color 
was  that  of  *an  old  miniature  kept  beneath  glass — that 
ivory  white  that  has  more  than  a  touch  of  saffron, 
which  causes  a  wonderful  clearness  of  color;  clouded 
only  where  faint  crimson  crept  into  her  cheeks — a,  rare 
crimson  like  the  color  of  a  March  rose. 

Rare  indeed ;  that  was  the  word  that  best  described 
her,  he  thought ;  there  was  about  her  nothing  that  was 
undecided,  whether  of  color  or  of  feature.  Her  hair 
was  that  rare  black  that  gives  to  cheeks  a  rarer  white- 
ness, so  that  her  pallor  seemed  more  than  ever  that 
of  the  same  old  miniature,  yet  withal  was  the  un- 


HIS  COUNTRY  OR  HIS  LIFE?  215 

clouded  pallor  of  health.  The  hair  was  coiled  low 
about  the  ears  framing  the  face,  out  of  which  looked 
features  as  small  as  they  were  clearly  outlined,  and 
the  red  of  her  lips  was  as  vivid  as  the  color  of  her 
cheeks  was  faint  and  illusory.  But  her  eyes  were  best 
of  all;  their  blue  was  the  blue  found  only  in  the  eyes 
of  beautiful  women;  to  compare  which  to  seas  and 
skies  is  to  rob  them  of  a  softly  sparkling  something 
that  has  never  been  seen  in  either. 

Never,  save  perhaps  when  her  thoughts  dwelt  upon 
the  death  of  the  boy  at  Cove  Cottage — for  she  sup- 
posed him  dead — would  her  eyes  ever  be  more  beauti- 
ful than  they  were  when  raised  to  Ethan  Van  Corlear, 
eyes  that  held  the  tenderness  of  the  Madonna,  the 
Mother  Woman  to  a  world  of  broken,  bitter  men.  And 
again  Ethan  Van  Corlear  was  upon  the  rack  of  regret 
Such  a  woman  might  have  been  for  him  once. 

He  checked  himself  sternly.  She  had  ceased  to  sob 
now,  and  was  looking  up,  unable  to  answer  the  question 
he  asked.  She  could  not  tell  him  it  was  for  him  that 
she  wept  So  Van  Corlear,  imagining  he  intruded 
where  he  had  no  right,  changed  the  formula  of  his 
question: 

"What  is  this  place?" 

She  told  him  this  time.  Told  him  at  length  until 
his  eyes  blazed.  ThVt  men  should  so  handle  women 
was  an  outrage  upon  his  heritage  from  his  ancestors. 
For,  with  some  vague  idea  of  keeping  his  thoughts 
from  himself  for  as  long  as  possible,  she  had  included 
in  her  answer  the  tale  of  how  she  had  been  brought 


2i6  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

here,  the  brutahty  of  her  captors  to  the  old  man,  her 
stepfather,  and  the  shooting  of  young  Petersham. 

"But — they  did  not  get  the  book  ?"  he  asked. 

"No!  They  did  not  get  the  book,"  she  answered 
simply.  She  did  not  tell  him  where  she  had  hidden  it, 
fearing  unseen  listeners. 

He  brooded  upon  it  all  at  length,  and  a  sense  of 
bitter  shame  overcame  him.  She,  a  gentle  girl,  slender 
little  thing  tliat  she  was,  had  successfully  resisted  her 
natural  fears,  still  stood  out  against  her  enemies 
despite  her  manifest  helplessness  at  their  hands.  Why, 
if  they  wished,  they  could 

He  gave  a  groan,  remembering  what  men  of  this 
race  had  done  to  the  women  of  Belgium.  She  knew 
all  this,  too,  yet  she  dared  withstand  them.  And  he, 
a  man,  once  a  man  of  sorts,  had  been  found  a  weak- 
ling; had  fallen  into  their  hands  like  some  rabbit  in 
a  snare. 

It  was  then  that  the  first  great  fear  overcame  him. 
He  felt  in  his  clothes  for  the  prescription  given  him 
the  night  before  by  Cornelius. 

It  was  gone! 

He  felt  in  another  pocket  for  the  case  that  held 
his  syringe.  It,  too,  was  gone.  Such  a  look  must 
have  come  into  his  eyes  as  frightened  the  girl,  for  she 
gave  a  little  cry.  And  looking  at  her  blanched  face 
and  her  scared  eyes,  he  knew  that  she  realized. 

"They — they  took  them,"  she  faltered.  "Your — 
your  medicine." 

Something  in  her  manner  made  him  eye  her  sharply. 
Finding  confirmation  of  his  worst  fears  in  the  look 


HIS  COUNTRY  OR  HIS  LIFE?  217 

she  tried  to  hide,  a  great  dread  took  hold  of  him,  a 
series  of  shudders  convulsed  him. 

He  hid  his  face  from  her  until  it  was  again  a  face 
he  was  not  ashamed  for  her  to  see — ^the  face  of  the 
old  Van  Corlear. 

"Do  you  understand  ?'*  he  asked  slowly  but  steadily. 
"Do  you?" 

"Yes,"  she  whispered,  and  silence  fell  between  them. 

Again  he  turned  away  from  her  and  dared  to  face 
the  hideous  horror  the  hours  would  soon  hold  for  him. 
In  the  face  of  her  own  heroism,  he  could  do  no  less 
than  play  the  man.  And  yet  the  deadening  knowledge 
was  upon  him  that  the  power  of  playing  the  man 
would  be  presently  denied  him. 

"You  say  you  understand,"  he  said  presently,  and 
very  slowly  but  steadily  as  before.  "But — do  you? 
Do  you  know  anything  of  what  I  am  confronted  with? 
Taking  morphia  is  not  like  taking  cocaine  or  whisky 
— or  like  anything  else  in  the  world.  To  its  victims, 
it  is  the  same  as  water  is  to  the  fish  or  air  to  you. 
When  I  am  deprived  of  it — and  I  take  it  that  is  what 
our  enemies  intend — I  will  begin  to  die.  If  only  the 
death  would  be  over  at  once,  but  it  is  lingering  torture. 
And  before  death  comes  madness.  And  in  that  space 
just  before  I  go  mad,  who  knows  what  I  will  not  do 
for  relief.  Twice  now,  in  the  last  twelve  hours  or  so, 
I  have  tried  to  do  without  morphia.  One  result  was 
to  fall  senseless  at  the  feet  of  the  man  who  for  the 
entire  night  I'd  been  endeavoring  to  avoid."  He 
paused.     "I  suppose  he  brought  me  here '* 

She  nodded,  turning  away  her  head,  for  the  muscles 


ai8  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

of  his  face  had  begun  to  twitch  horribly.  Still  with 
averted  face  and  in  a  low  voice  she  corrected  him 
as  to  the  time.  "Much  more  than  twelve  hours,"  she 
said,  and  explained  where  he  had  been  before  being 
brought  here. 

"So  it's  midnight  again,"  Van  Corlear  mused,  con- 
trolling the  twitching  of  his  facial  muscles  with  diffi- 
culty. "Then  I  dare  say  my  captor  must  have  found 
the  stuff  in  my  pocket  and  administered  it,  else  I 
wouldn't  be  here  now." 

She  nodded  again;  then,  suddenly  burst  out: 

"But  aren't  men  cured?  Can't  they  be?  It's  too 
awful.    They  must  be." 

"They  are  cured,  what  they  called  being  'cured,*  " 
he  responded  listlessly.  "I  was  cured  once.  They  used 
hyoscin " 

"What?"  she  demanded,  her  eyes  alight.  "Say  that 
again  ?" 

"Hyoscin,"  he  repeated,  staring  at  her.  "Hyoscin 
in  small  doses,  along  with  other  things  to  keep  up 
my  heart  action,  and  others  for — for  a  number  of 
things.  But  it  left  me  half  blind  and  weak  as  a  kitten 
and  without  interest  in  anything.  The  world  seemed 
a  very  dull  place,  for  I  had  lost  my  grip  on  everything. 
Then,  if  I  had  been  half  the  man  I  should  have  been, 
I  would  have  gone  abroad  and  forgotten  myself  in 
fighting  for  France — for  others.  But  I  mooned  about, 
wretched  in  soul  and  body;  for  using  the  stuff  had 
unfitted  me  for  anything  I  used  to  do.  I  had  become 
flabby  where  once  I  was  athletic,  listless  where  once 
I  was  ambitious.     Nothing  mattered.     But,  worst  of 


HIS  COUNTRY  OR  HIS  LIFE?  219 

all,  I  could  not  sleep,  and  that  was  what  drove  me 
back  to  the  drug.  If  only  I  had  been  a  man,"  he 
broke  off  bitterly,  "and  gone  to  France  and  fought. 
But  all  I  seemed  to  think  about  was  how  peaceful  and 
restful  the  days  had  been  when  I  used  morphia;  how 
readily  my  brain  had  worked,  how " 

He  broke  off  again. 

"Yesterday,  when  I  reported  at  the  armory  to  go 
to  Mexico  with  my  regiment,  I  was  refused.  'Physic- 
ally unfit'  they  said,  and  so  I  am.  Physically  and 
psychically  and  mentally,  and  in  every  other  way  unfit, 
as  you  will  soon  see.  I  don't  know  what  in  God's 
name  I  am  going  to  do.  That's  the  worst  of  it.  I 
can't  trust  myself,  for  I  don't  know  what  I  am  going 
to  do." 

"You  mean?"  she  asked,  eyes  widening. 

He  did  not  answer  immediately.  As  he  staggered 
to  his  feet,  a  yawn,  such  a  yawn  as  the  girl  had  never 
seen,  distorted  his  face.  A  long-drawn  shudder  fol- 
lowed; she  could  see  it  rippling  along  the  muscles  of 
his  arms — his  legs — saw  him  press  hard  against  the 
floor  with  both  feet 

"You  see,"  he  said,  his  eyes  blinded  by  the  scalding 
tears  that  followed,  tears  that  yet  were  not  tears ;  "I'm 
getting  my  first  warnings.  That  terrible  yawning  and 
shuddering.  It  feels  as  if  it  was  tearing  apart  every 
muscle  in  one's  body  and  afterward  tying  them  into 
knots." 

He  began  to  pace  the  room.  She  followed  him  and 
laid  a  hand  on  his  shoulders. 

"I  know  you — you  are  in  pain,"  she  faltered ;  "but — 


d30  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

but — ^what  did  you  mean  a  moment  ago  when  you  said 
you  couldn't  trust  yourself — didn't  know  what  you 
would  do " 

"Mean  ?"  he  repeated  vacantly.  Then,  remembering, 
be  gripped  himself  back  to  concentration.  *T  meant 
that  I  am  not  fit  to  be  trusted.  Especially  with  such 
a  secret  as  I  possess,"  he  said  grimly.  "I  have  heard 
of  an  ordinarily  peaceful  man  who  broke  into  a  doc- 
tor's office  and  killed  him  to  get  the  stuff  he  was  denied. 
What  will  /  do,  knowing  I  have  only  to  speak  to  be 
given  what  I  am  beginning  to  need  as  badly  as  that 
murderer  did." 

His  eyes  held  hers.  She  turned  away.  Both  man 
and  girl  began  pacing  the  room. 


CHAPTER  VI 

How  Ethan  Van  Corlear  Proved  Worthy  of  His 

Name 

HOURS  elapsed  before  either  uttered  a  word; 
for  the  greater  part  of  which  she  dared  not 
even  look  at  him;  and  during  which  there 
had  been  no  sign  of  Knatchbull.  When  he  entered  at 
last,  that  same  hateful  smile  upon  his  face  that  the 
girl  dreaded,  it  was  in  company  with  Krafft,  who  car- 
ried a  covered  tray. 

"Here's  some  food  for  you,"  he  said. 

The  girl  was  not  hungry,  but  anything  was  better 
than  the  monotonous  pacing.  She  turned  to  Van 
Corlear,  but  he  had  withdrawn  to  the  shadows  at  the 
rear  of  the  room  and,  his  back  to  her,  shook  his  head. 
She  felt  a  chill  at  the  thought  that  he  feared  to  let  her 
see  his  face. 

"Perhaps,"  said  Knatchbull,  reverting  to  his  silkiest 
tones,  "if  the  gentleman  will  not  eat,  he  will  take  other 
relief?" 

The  girl's  back  was  to  Van  Corlear  now  mercifully, 
and  she  pretended  to  have  an  appetite  for  her  food. 
But  she  could  not  keep  her  eyes  from  Knatchbull, 
who,  by  the  long  table  and  in  the  light  of  the  electric 

221 


222  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

lamp,  was  going  through  a  piece  of  business  that  she 
at  first  failed  to  understand. 

He  had  taken  one  of  the  spoons  from  the  tray  and  filled 
it  with  water  which  he  was  boiling  over  a  small  spirit 
lamp.  This  done  he  handed  the  spoon  to  Krafft,  and, 
when  the  latter  reached  into  his  pocket  and  took  out 
a  small  black  case,  she  understood  well  enough. 

Dropping  several  pellets  from  the  tube  into  the 
barrel  of  a  syringe,  Knatchbull  filled  it  with  the  boiled 
water,  then  shook  the  pellets  up  and  down  until  they 
were  dissolved. 

The  girl  heard  a  stifled  cry  from  behind  her.  She 
flung  down  knife  and  fork.  Their  clatter  sounded 
surprisingly  loud  in  the  dead  silence. 

Knatchbull  only  smiled  at  her.  Rising,  he  took  off 
his  coat,  rolled  up  his  shirt  sleeve,  and,  having  anointed 
a  place  upon  his  arm  with  alcohol,  plunged  in  the 
needle  and  pushed  the  piston. 

Followed  a  sound  like  the  roar  of  a  sudden  gale, 
and  Van  Corlear,  his  face  distorted  out  of  all  sem- 
blance to  humanity,  reached  the  table,  both  hands 
before  him  clawing  at  Knatchbull's  throat.  But  only 
to  be  confronted  by  the  muzzle  of  the  Liiger  pistol 
that  Krafft  held  pointed  steadily  against  his  forehead, 
pushing  him  back  and  holding  him  off  at  arm's  length. 
And  Knatchbull,  not  moving  a  step,  smiled  and  smiled. 

For  a  moment — although  to  the  girl  it  seemed  the 
stress  and  silence  of  it  would  never  end — they  held 
these  positions.  Then,  with  a  bitter  cry.  Van  Corlear 
crumpled  up  and  sank  into  a  chair,  his  head  and  arms 
flat  on  the  table. 


HIS  COUNTRY  OR  HIS  LIFE?  223 

Knatchbull,  whose  eyes  again  gained  their  strange 
ghtter,  continued  to  smile  as  he  spoke: 

"That  is  my  tipple,  friend,  not  yours.  Cocaine! 
It  sharpens  the  wits  instead  of  deadening  them,  as 
yours  does.  But  I  have  yours  in  my  pocket,  also ;  and 
I  am  quite  willing  that  you  should  have  it,  too.  You 
know  what  I  want.  The  book  you  picked  up  last  night. 
Where  is  it?" 

But,  although  she  could  see  that  rippling  of  his 
muscles  plainly,  for  the  sleeves  of  his  coat  were  tight- 
ened in  the  position  in  which  he  lay,  Van  Corlear 
himself  did  not  move.  So,  when  Knatchbull  spoke 
again,  he  was  not  smiling. 

"Why  prolong  this  uselessly?  You  must  give  in — 
you  know  you  cannot  hold  out.  And  if  I  leave  this 
room,  I  will  not  return  for  two  hours.  Two  hours  of 
torture  when  you  can  have  relief  now.    Now!    Look  !'* 

And  he  held  out  in  his  palm  a  tube  marked  in  red 
letters  "Morphia;"  held  it  within  reaching  distance. 
Slowly,  as  one  hypnotized,  Van  Corlear  raised  a  face 
so  ghastly  that,  with  a  little  shriek,  Clovis  Clarke 
turned  away.  His  eyes  encountered  the  tube,  read  the 
lettering.  He  seemed  gathering  all  his  strength  for 
one  great  spring  when,  smiling  again,  Knatchbull 
pocketed  the  tube. 

"Well?" 

Clovis  Qarke  stole  a  look  at  Van  Corlear.  He  was 
gripping  the  table  with  both  hands,  and  they  were  beet- 
red  from  the  strain.  As  he  sat,  rock-like,  a  tiny  trickle 
of  blood  ran  from  his  bitten  lips  down  to  his  chin. 
But  he  did  not  speak. 


224  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

**Very  well!  Two  hours  morel  Come,  Krafft!" 
snarled  Knatchbull,  turning  away. 

His  companion  followed,  but  more  cautiously,  back- 
ing away,  his  hand  upon  his  weapon;  and  the  door 
clanged  behind  them  like  some  ill-omened  bell.  And 
as  it  closed,  there  was  torn  from  Van  Corlear  a  sound 
the  like  of  which  the  girl  had  never  heard  before; 
at  the  sound  of  which  she  was  to  awaken  from  many 
future  dreams,  a  shriek  in  her  throat.  It  was  a  sound 
that  she  could  liken  only  to  the  wail  of  a  lost  soul. 

She  had  stood  all  she  was  able  to  stand.  Quickly, 
she  ran  to  her  bunk  and  rummaged  therein  for  the 
hidden  tube  of  hyoscin.  With  it  in  hand  she  ap- 
proached Van  Corlear.  He  felt  her  hand  on  his 
shoulder  and  turned  his  tortured  eyes  to  hers. 

"You  said,"  she  gasped,  "something  about  hyoscin 
being  used  as  a  cure.  Here  is  a  tube  of  it.  Perhaps 
it  will  help  you.  But  be  careful.  A  quarter  of  a  grain 
is  certain  death." 

She  did  not  understand  the  look  he  gave  her — ^that 
of  one  suddenly  inspired,  nor  the  slow  smile  that  fol- 
lowed it  and  wiped  away  the  worst  of  the  pain  in  his 
eyes ;  did  not  understand  it  — then!    • 

"There  cannot  be  a  quarter  of  a  grain  here — alto- 
gether," he  answered  her.    "It  is  in  fiftieths ;  yes,  there 

is.     Eighteen  fiftieths.     That  is "     He  paused  so 

long  endeavoring  to  concentrate  on  so  simple  a  prob- 
lem and  failing  that  she  answered  for  him : 

"It  is  more  than  a  third." 

"Well,  I  will  be  careful,"  he  said  with  the  same 
strange  smile.     "But " 


HIS  COUNTRY  OR  HIS  LIFE?  225 

Again  he  paused. 

"It  may  make  me  unconscious,  and  so  I  want  you 
to  know" — he  had  risen  and  was  whispering — "where 
that  book  is.  I  will  write  it  down  for  you  in  case  any 
one  is  listening.  Memorize  it,  then  destroy  it.  But 
memorize  it  carefully,  first." 

His  scribbling  covered  half  a  page  of  paper  before 
he  concluded.  "Memorize  it  quickly,"  he  warned. 
And,  as  her  eyes  were  concentrated  upon  it  to  the 
exclusion  of  all  else,  he  took  up  a  glass  of  water  and 
stood  for  a  second,  eyes  closed,  head  bowed,  as  one 
who  prays.  Then  with  a  sudden  movement  he  im- 
corked  the  vial,  swallowed  something  from  it,  and 
washed  it  down  with  water. 

He  passed  the  girl  who,  with  brows  knit,  still  studied 
the  slip  of  paper  on  which  was  written  the  address 
exactly  as  on  the  envelope  he  had  given  Cornelius  to 
mail,  addressed  to  his  own  office — or  rather  the  office 
that  once  was  his,  "Van  Corlear  &  Van  Corlear" — 
with  the  instruction  to  the  chief  clerk  to  place  it  in  the 
safe.  This  copied  address  was  followed  by  his  own 
name  and  residence.  Came,  then,  these  cryptic  words, 
the  full  significance  of  which  she  did  not  immediately 
understand:   "Notify  them  if  you  can." 

She  sprang  to  her  feet.  Van  Corlear  was  in  his 
bunk,  very  quiet  now.  Instantly  she  was  at  his  side» 
pointing  to  the  last  words: 

"What  do  they  mean?" 

As  he  turned  his  eyes  to  her,  the  dread  suspicion  in 
her  soul  became  certainty.  For  his  eyes  were  peaceful 
now,  a  faint  film  upon  them. 


226  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

"Destroy — paper,"  he  whispered  out  of  a  dry  throat. 
"Burn." 

She  knew  she  must  obey,  otherwise  all  had  been  to 
no  avail.  Striking  a  match,  she  set  the  scrap  of  paper 
alight,  tossed  it  to  the  floor,  and  saw  it  bum  black. 
Then  it  was  she  who  was  blinded  by  hot  tears — real 
tears,  as  she  bent  over  him. 

"Let  me  see  that  tube,"  she  faltered. 

It  was  all  he  could  do  to  open  his  palm.  The  tube 
rolled  to  the  floor,  corkless — empty. 

"Only  way,"  he  whispered,  so  low  she  could  scarcely 
hear  him,  for  his  lips  were  as  dry  as  tinder,  and  his 
tongue  seemed  to  crackle  in  his  parched  throat.  "Bound 
to  have  told  them.  Couldn't — stand — any — ^more.  It 
was — my  country — or  my  life.    Only — way " 

His  eyelids  fluttered,  drooped.  His  lips  snapped 
together  as  if  they  had  been  shutters  closing  by  some 
mechanical  device.  His  limbs  straightened  convul- 
sively, then  fell,  rigid.    The  eyes  opened,  staring. 

But  when  she  looked  again,  a  strange  change  had 
come  over  his  face  that  but  a  short  while  since  had 
seemed  almost  beastlike  in  its  ferocity.  About  the 
poor  dead  lips  seemed  to  hover  a  faint  elusive  some- 
thing that  was  at  once  less — and  more — than  a  smile. 
And  the  eyes  no  longer  stared,  or  if  they  did  they 
had  first  beheld  something  which  had  wreathed  the 
lips  about  with  that  smile. 

And  so,  as  the  dead  lips  smiled  up  at  her,  she  burst 
into  an  agony  of  tears  and  sank  down  beside  the  Van 
Corlear  who  had  proved  himself  worthy  to  bear  his 
name. 


HIS  COUNTRY  OR  HIS   LIFE?  227 

For  now  she  and  she  alone  knew  the  whereabouts 
of  two  of  the  books  which  would  give  to  her  country 
the  knowledge  of  the  betrayers  by  whom  it  was  beset. 
And  she  the  prisoner  of  those  betrayers — alone  in  that 
chamber  of  death — alone  and  afraid — afraid 

Had  she  known  what  Yorke  Norroy  knew  at  that 
time  she  would  not  have  utterly  despaired. 


BOOK  FIVE 
A  LEAF  FROM  THE  KAISER'S  BOOK 


CHAPTER  I 
Tells  How  Two  Prisoners  Fared 

IT  so  happened  that  in  the  city  of  New  York,  on 
the  night  of  the  thirtieth  of  January,  191 7,  there 
were  two  prisoners  whose  Hves,  liberties,  and 
pursuits  of  happiness,  depended  entirely  upon  what 
Mr.  Yorke  Norroy  made  up  his  mind  to  do.  One 
was  that  certain  enemy  alien.  Max  Spiegel,  held  for 
his  attempt  to  bomb  the  former  headquarters  of  Mr. 
Norroy  and  other  secret  agents  of  the  department 
of  state.  The  other  prisoner  was  that  one  held  by 
Mr.  Spiegel's  friends — Miss  Qovis  Clarke — and  Mr. 
Norroy  meant  to  use  Spiegel  as  the  lever  that  would 
effect  her  release — if  possible. 

Clovis  had  never  heard  of  Max  Spiegel  any  more 
than  he  had  heard  of  her.  Nor  had  Yorke  Norroy 
ever  heard  of  her  until  that  day  when  that  severely 
wounded  young  man,  Charles  Petersham,  had  rallied 
long  enough  to  tell  him  that  she  was  one  of  those 
passers-by  who  had  picked  up  one  of  the  missing 
volumes  of  the  Black  Book,  and,  being  a  good  patriot, 
had  been  about  to  hand  it  over  to  him  when  certain 
German  agents,  chief  among  whom  was  the  inhuman 
Knatchbull,  had  broken  into  her  stepfather's  house^ 

231 


232  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

brutally  maltreated  the  old  man,  and  threatened  her 
with  like  treatment.  It  was  then  he,  Petersham,  had 
interposed;  had  managed  to  shoot  down  several  of 
the  marauders,  and  had  been  rewarded  by  a  variety 
of  wounds,  any  one  of  which  was  likely  to  prove  fatal. 

The  only  fortunate  phase  of  the  whole  affair  was 
that  Qovis  had  not  yet  gone  to  get  the  book.  Else 
it  would  now  be  in  their  hands.  That  she  had  hidden 
it  well,  and  had  stoutly  refused  to  reveal  where,  was 
proved  by  her  being  held  prisoner  after  the  house  had 
been  literally  torn  apart  in  search  of  it.  But  unfor- 
tunately she  had  not  told  young  Petersham  where  it 
was,  either. 

Intending,  as  she  had,  to  put  it  into  his  hands  in 
a  few  moments,  it  had  not  occurred  to  her  to  say, 
in  her  haste,  just  where  it  lay  concealed;  so  that, 
apart  from  his  natural  desire  to  rescue  so  brave  a 
young  lady  from  captors  so  utterly  unappreciative  of 
her  courage  that  they  were  apt  to  make  her  suffer 
for  it,  Yorke  Norroy  must  first  come  face  to  face 
with  her  if  ever  he  was  to  know  the  whereabouts  of 
a  good  one-fourth  of  the  traitors  within  our  gates. 

It  was  actually  a  good  one-half,  but  Norroy  had 
no  means  of  knowing  that.  Had  he  been  aware  that 
the  other  passer-by  who  had  picked  up  the  second  book 
had  also  fallen  into  alien  hands,  and  had  killed  himself 
rather  than  reveal  his  knowledge  regarding  the  book 
to  any  one  save  Clovis  Clarke,  Yorke  Norroy  would 
have  been  a  doubly  dangerous  man  for  Max  Spiegel 
to  refuse.  It  is  possible  that  he  might  have  been  un- 
able to  keep  his  hands  from  Spiegel's  throat  unless 


A  LEAF  FROM  THE  KAISER'S  BOOK    233 

he  gave  up  the  information  required;  for  the  added 
necessity  of  immediately  coming  to  the  girl's  aid  would 
have  been  too  much  for  him  to  bear  in  patience  the 
stolid  refusals  of  a  stubborn,  bullet-headed  rascal. 

But,  although  one  of  her  captors  only  surmised  that 
before  he  died,  Ethan  Van  Corlear  had  revealed  to  her 
the  whereabouts  of  the  other  book,  Qovis*  situation 
on  the  morning  of  January  31st  was  a  hazardous  one; 
as  might  have  been  judged  by  any  one  who  had  over- 
heard a  certain  conversation  on  the  part  of  her  jailer 
and  his  companion,  Krafft. 

It  was  one  of  those  little  ironies  found  so  often  in 
life  itself,  which  is  cruder  than  the  most  austere 
chronicler  who  recreates  it  on  the  printed  page  dares 
to  be,  that  Clovis  Clarke's  prison  house  should  have 
been  in  full  sight  of  Yorke  Norroy  as  he  sat,  brooding 
in  his  tower,  perfecting  the  scheme  that  he  meant 
should  result  in  her  liberty.  More  than  once  his  eyes 
had  fallen  on  the  house  in  question,  a  landmark  of 
another  age — the  age  Norroy  had  known  as  a  boy 
when  his  parents  had  brought  him  to  New  York  on 
many  of  their  trips — an  age  of  quiet  and  convention 
when  Washington  Square  and  Gramercy  Park  were 
the  centers  of  the  fashionable  world.  The  house  in 
question  stood  on  one  of  the  comers  of  Irving  Place, 
and  its  windows  commanded  a  view  of  those  clumps 
of  ancient  trees  beside  well-ordered  walks  bordered  by 
bushes,  which  is  Gramercy. 

The  house  in  question  was  an  ancient  structure  with 
fanlights  over  the  doorways.  Its  frontage  was  not 
unusual,  but  it  extended  along  the  side  street,  eked  out 


•234  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

by  a  sheer  line  of  red  brick  that  fell  when  the  house 
dipped  to  the  garden  and  rose  again  when  the  coach 
house  topped  the  wall.  In  the  center  of  this  long 
garden  wall,  overgrown  by  ivy  and  creeper,  was  set 
a  sturdy  iron  door;  which,  shaded,  as  was  the  wall 
itself,  by  the  overhanging  branches  of  the  trees  from 
within,  and,  furthermore,  hidden  by  the  sturdy  oak 
between  pavement  and  curb,  was  always  in  shadow, 
and  formed  a  most  desirable  entrance,  night  or  day, 
for  those  wishful  of  entering  without  attracting  undue 
attention.  As  a  certain  Eitel  Krafft  most  assuredly 
•did  when  he  entered  on  this  particular  morning. 

Once  within,  and  the  iron  door  shut  sharply  behind 
him,  Krafft,  who  had  temporarily  assumed  a  foot- 
man's livery,  crossed  the  garden  and  stepped  briskly 
•down  the  steps  that  led  to  the  basement  kitchen.  Here 
another  man,  who  wore  the  white  apron  of  a  chef 
over  livery  similar  to  Krafft's,  and  assumed  for  the 
same  reason,  took  from  him  the  various  green  groceries 
he  had  gone  to  purchase.  Krafft  answered  some  ques- 
tions pertaining  to  the  breakfast  he  was  to  share  with 
his  companion  who  awaited  below,  and  the  girl  they 
kept  imprisoned.  After  which  he  continued  his  way 
down  another  flight  of  stairs  that  led  to  the  coal  cellar, 
followed  by  the  man  in  the  apron. 

Arriving  at  the  wood  bin,  which  to  all  intents  and 
purposes  was  nothing  else,  Krafft  thrust  his  gloved 
hand  in  amid  the  wood.  His  fingers  fastened  on  an 
iron  ring  which,  when  tugged  at,  proved  to  be  fastened 
to  a  trapdoor,  the  raising  of  which  dislodged  a  large 
quantity  of  wood.     When  Krafft  had  descended  the 


A  LEAF  FROM  THE  KAISER'S  BOOK    235 

ladder  underneath,  the  temporary  chef  closed  the  trap- 
door and  replaced  the  wood  over  it,  grumbling  in  an 
undertone  at  what  he  considered  an  excessive  and  un- 
necessary precaution. 

The  passage  below  in  which  Krafft  now  found  him- 
self was  dark,  and  seemingly  was  only  a  lower  coal 
cellar,  for  a  quantity  of  this  fuel  was  strewn  about 
in  the  earthen  floor  and  heaps  of  it  stood  in  the  corners. 
As  the  ray  of  his  pocket  flashlight  fell  on  the  walls, 
they  seemed  earthen  also,  but  when  Krafft  pressed 
a  button  in  the  wall  a  wooden  panel,  painted  so  cun- 
ningly that  it  duplicated  exactly  the  appearance  of  the 
other  portions  of  the  dirt  wall,  slid  up,  disclosing  a 
door  of  discolored  iron.  By  pressing  another  spring 
a  circular  segment  of  the  door  flew  back,  revealing 
a  dial  not  unlike  that  of  a  safe. 

Leaning  over  and  directing  his  flashlight  ray  on  the 
dial,  Krafft  operated  two  combinations;  one  of  letters 
which  only  served  to  expose  a  second  dial  bearing 
numbers  which,  in  its  turn,  must  be  accurately  manipu- 
lated by  its  particular  combination  before  the  door  it- 
self opened. 

Even  then  Krafft  had  not  reached  the  inmost  re- 
cesses of  the  place.  The  chamber  finally  disclosed  was 
not  unlike  a  similar  apartment  underneath  Herr 
Voegel's  Riverside  Drive  mansion — ^being  furnished 
like  the  lounge  of  a  club.  But,  and  here  Yorke  Norroy 
had  partly  erred  in  his  deductions:  this  was  one,  the 
only  one  true,  refuge  of  the  league  that  had  no  con- 
nection with  more  subterranean  regions.  No  passage 
beneath  connected  it  with  others  of  its  kind.     There 


236  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

were  a  number  of  such  hiding  places  that  were  con- 
nected; but,  with  fear  upon  him  that,  now  that  one 
of  these  had  been  discovered — that  one  on  Van  Corlear 
Square  which  his  fellow  spies  had  fired  behind  them 
even  before  they  blew  up  the  underground  passage — 
Knatchbull  had  deemed  it  unsafe  to  trust  Clovis  Clarke 
to  any  save  the  leaguers'  last  resort.  This  was  the 
only  safe  prison  house  for  one  possessing  knowledge 
of  so  dangerous  a  character  that,  if  it  came  to  be  shared 
with  Federal  agents,  would  spell  disaster  to  any  further 
activities  of  any  of  the  leaguers. 

Knatchbull  had  always  known,  and  had  finally  suc- 
ceeded in  convincing  Heinzmann,  his  now  disabled 
chieftain,  that  this  linking  together  of  their  fastnesses 
by  underground  tunnels,  despite  its  undoubted  value 
in  many  respects,  had  also  its  weak  points.  True,  it 
enabled  them  to  escape  from  any  one  house,  was  that 
house  suspected  and  raided;  true,  it  enabled  alien 
enemies  wanted  by  the  department  of  justice,  and  sus- 
pects watched  by  Norroy's  own  corps,  to  go  to  places 
like  Henricus  Voegel's,  which  they  would  not  have 
dared  to  visit  openly.  But  its  disadvantages  were  also 
apparent — ^because  of  the  interminable  labor  and 
enormous  difficulty  of  digging  such  tunnels,  it  had  been 
necessary  to  limit  the  zones  of  their  activities  to  those 
already  tmdermined  by  old-time  smugglers  and  by 
agents  of  the  Colonies  in  the  last  century  and  a  half 
when  the  British  still  held  possesion.  An  early  task 
of  the  league,  undertaken  more  than  a  decade  ago, 
had  been  to  locate  ancient  maps  giving  these  locations. 
Then  they  had  rented  houses  in  the  quarters  to  which 


A  LEAF  FROM  THE  KAISER'S  BOOK    237 

the  tunnels  gave  access,  and  finally,  with  great  cautious- 
ness and  almost  supernormal  perseverance  and  stealth, 
had  dared  connect  these  tunnels  with  one  another. 

But  now  that  Norroy  knew  of  their  underground 
operations  Knatchbull  knew  he  would  see  to  it  that  there 
would  be  dotible  shifts  of  excavators  working  night  and 
day  upon  the  blown-up  tunnel  that  led  from  Van  Corlear 
Square,  And,  although  it  would  take  them  weeks, 
maybe  months — so  long  had  the  leaguers  labored  be- 
fore them — to  come  upon  the  first  house  to  which  it 
led,  they  would  come  to  it  in  time,  and  that  would 
be  the  beginning  of  the  end. 

All  this  meant  many  months,  perhaps  a  year,  before 
the  whole  system  was  laid  bare — for  upon  the  enemy's 
approach  the  mines  in  the  next  tunnel  would  be  ex- 
ploded, and  so  on ;  but  then  Knatchbull  had  not  known 
how  long  it  would  be  necessary  to  hold  Clovis  Clarke 
a  prisoner.  Unless  she  directed  them  to  the  spot  where 
he  could  find  the  book,  he  had  meant  to  keep  her  there 
indefinitely. 

But  the  suicide  of  Van  Corlear  had  altered  matters. 
Knatchbull  had  an  uncannily  evil  mind,  true,  but  es- 
pecially when  it  was  sharpened  to  even  more  abnormal 
keenness  by  cocaine,  an  uncannily  able  one,  too.  And 
so  he  now  suspected  that  Clovis  Clarke  knew  about 
both  books.  He  had  flashes  like  that — flashes  that 
were  no  less  than  sheer  genius — which  was  one  of  the 
reasons  he  was  tolerated  by  that  extraordinary  efficient 
body  of  spies,  the  league,  and  held  such  high  office 
among  them.  The  other  reasons  are  not  far  to  seek. 
No  one  even  in  the  league  was  sure  of  his  nationality 


838  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

— ^not  even  whether  he  was  European  or  American — 
which  made  it  possible  for  him  to  pass  as  New  Yorker, 
Londoner,  or  Parisian  at  will.  No  Prussian  enthusiast 
working  at  high  tension  with  the  belief  he  was  better- 
ing America  by  betraying  it  to  Junkerism  was  capable, 
in  cold  blood,  of  more  callous  cruelty,  nor  of  inspiring 
it  in  others,  as  his  leadership  seemed  to  do.  By  nature 
he  was  cold  as  chilled  steel ;  he  loved  nobody  and  noth- 
ing. Indeed,  it  seemed  in  him  that  the  average  affec- 
tions of  the  average  human  were  reversed  and  that 
where  others  loved  or  had  pity  he  despised  and  de- 
lighted to  hurt.  There  are  such  creatures.  Add  to 
this  his  indulgence  in  that  wickedest  of  drugs,  cocaine, 
under  whose  influence  even  the  most  spineless  become 
gangster  murderers,  and  you  have  a  superbrute  indeed. 

When  Krafft  opened  the  second  iron  door  that  led 
farther  on  underground  he  came  face  to  face  with 
Knatchbull.  KnatchbuU  was  unshaven,  untidy,  in 
shirt  sleeves  none  too  clean.  His  bloodshot  eyes 
wandered  from  Krafft  to  tlie  girl  who  had  sat,  fully 
dressed,  through  the  entire  night  on  the  edge  of  her 
bed,  staring  in  sheer  horror  at  the  man  in  whose 
presence  she  dared  not  sleep. 

Clovis  Clarke  had  sat  so  long  in  the  one  position, 
and  had  stared  so  unceasingly,  that  both  the  rigidity 
of  her  body  and  the  horror  in  her  eyes  seemed  static ; 
as  much  a  part  of  her  personality  as  the  way  she 
arranged  her  hair.  She  was  a  decidedly  pretty  girl, 
this  Clovis  Clarke,  Krafft  thought,  and  she  had  pluck 
that  he  was  bound  to  admire. 


A  LEAF  FROM  THE  KAISER'S  BOOK    239 

"I  wish  to  speak  to  you,"  he  said  shortly,  putting 
one  hand  on  the  door  as  if  he  would  draw  it  toward 
him  and  shut  out  the  sight  of  the  girl. 

KnatchbuU  saw  what  Krafft  had  not  tried  to  hide. 
And  it  pleased  him.  It  always  pleased  Knatchbull  to 
inflict  pain  or  arouse  anger.  And  though  Krafft  was 
his  co-worker,  and  as  close  to  him  as  a  man  could  be, 
since  both  would  share  a  like  unenviable  fate  if  caught 
at  what  they  were  at,  this  meant  nothing  to  Knatchbull. 
He  had  no  friends  or  any  one  for  whom  he  cared  a 
straw.  He  gloried  in  it.  Nor  was  there  any  one  who 
cared  a  straw  for  him.    And  he  gloried  in  this,  too. 

So  he  was  pleased  at  the  tliought  that,  in  doing 
what  pleased  him,  he  had  without  any  extra  effort 
annoyed  Krafft.  It  pleased  him  even  more  to  reflect 
that  Krafft  was  helpless  to  resent  what  he  did  not  like. 
For  both  were  bound  by  their  oath  to  the  league  to 
do  those  things  that  would  most  benefit  the  fatherland. 
And  Krafft  could  not  say  Knatchbull  was  not  doing  it. 

"What  has  happened?"  asked  Krafft  roughly,  and 
again  it  gave  Knatchbull  pleasure.  For  he  was  always 
pleased  that  nothing  ever  happened  to  cause  him  to 
lose  control  of  himself  while  doing  things  that  enraged 
others.    This  gave  him  a  flattering  sense  of  superiority. 

*T  have  begun  a  new  system  with  the  girl,"  Knatch- 
bull replied  with  the  cool,  candid  brevity  of  a  dispatch. 
**It  won't  do  to  keep  her  here.  We  can't  spare  the 
place.  It's  the  only  really  safe  place  left  while  those 
books  are  at  large." 

He   derived   pleasure    from   his   contemplation   of 


240  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

Krafft,  who  could  not  deny  this.  With  the  house  itself, 
the  conspirators  had  very  little  to  do.  They  paid  its 
owner  for  the  refuge  of  his  name — it  was  a  name  well 
known  in  Manhattan — ^by  keeping  up  the  house  for 
him  and  allowing  him  enough  to  pay  the  dues  at  those 
clubs  where  in  his  estimation  a  gentleman  could  get 
decently  drunk.  For  something  more  than  ten  thou- 
sand a  year,  Killian  Duyckinck  had  sold  his  honor. 
The  league  had  taken  over  the  underground  apart- 
ments and  the  right  to  furnish  him  with  servants  of 
their  own  choosing.  This  arrangement  had  the  effect 
of  providing  them  with  a  refuge  that  would  pass  un- 
questioned to  the  end.  The  house  remained  ostensibly 
Killian  Duyckinck's ;  they  never  stirred  above  the  base- 
ment floor  nor  entered  by  other  than  the  gate  to  the 
back  garden. 

Krafft,  in  whom  at  present  the  Prussian  training 
and  habit  of  mind  had  been  swamped  by  natural  feel- 
ing, looked  unutterable  things  at  Knatchbull. 

"What  have  you  been  doing  to  that  girl !"  It  was 
almost  as  if  Krafft  accused.  He  had  slept  comfortably 
through  the  night  in  one  of  the  servant's  rooms  in 
the  basement,  leaving  Knatchbull  in  the  room  in  which 
they  now  stood.  It  was  his  turn  to  be  on  watch,  true, 
but  Krafft  had  thought  that  meant  no  more  than  that 
Knatchbull  should  remain  below;  the  girl  was  safe 
enough  behind  iron  doors. 

*T  learned,  in  India,"  drawled  Knatchbull,  fixing  his 
obnoxiously  shining  eyes  on  Krafft,  "that  if  one  is 
kept  awake  three  nights  running,  aroused  instantly  at 


A  LEAF  FROM  THE  KAISER'S  BOOK    241 

each  endeavor  to  doze,  that  they  would  soon  be  willing 
to  tell  what  they  know.  I  have  seen  the  plan  followed 
out  with  indifferently  good  results,  and  last  night  I 
began  it  on  her." 

Krafft  kept  his  temper  with  difficulty.  He  was  not 
a  bad  sort,  this  Krafft;  only  mistakenly  educated  into 
believing  that  Prussian  kultur  was  so  superior  to  the 
muddled  efforts  of  the  rest  of  the  world  to  govern 
itself  that,  in  time,  the  world  would  thank  even  those 
who  had  betrayed  it  into  Prussian  hands.  But  all 
the  doubts  that  had  arisen  within  him  since  he  came 
to  America  had  crystallized  within  him  since  the  eyes 
of  this  captive  girl  had  denied  his  existence.  The 
suicide  of  her  companion  when  Van  Corlear  feared 
he  might  confess  under  torture  to  the  place  where  his 
book  was  hidden,  had  hung  heavily  upon  Krafft,  too; 
for  it  had  been  Krafft  who  was  responsible  for  his 
capture.  Taken  with  that,  what  he  had  just  seen  in 
the  girl's  eyes,  the  look  that  said  she  was  not  in  com- 
pany with  her  own  kind,  but  with  savages  utterly 
alien  to  all  humane  or  even  human  understanding,  had 
been  like  a  match  to  a  pile  of  prepared  tinder. 

"What  will  you  do  when  you  need  sleep  yourself?" 
asked  Krafft  savagely.  "Because  I  will  not  be  party 
to  any  such  barbarous  scheme." 

"Fortunately,  my  friend,  I  shall  not  need  you," 
returned  Knatchbull  suavely. 

He  swung  out  by  a  cable  chain  a  number  of  golden 
trinkets  attached  thereto — knife,  pencil  case,  other 
things,  among  them  a  tiny  enameled  box  which  he 


243  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

opened,  exposing  a  white  powder.  He  partook  of 
this  as  old  gentleman  take  snuff. 

"It  is  best  the  other  way,"  he  admitted,  slapping 
a  back  pocket,  where  he  carried  a  more  elaborate 
method  for  administering  cocaine.  "But  this  will 
serve  for  the  moment.  This  little  powder,  my  friend, 
enables  one  to  go  without  sleep  for  days — for  at  least 
a  week.  So  my  plan  shall  not  be  defeated  by  your 
chicken-heartedness.  If  you  have  any  objections,  1 
suggest  you  mention  them  to  Heinzmann.  He  is  the 
only  authority  my  commission  obliges  me  to  respect. 
And  if  you  add,  after  stating  your  objections,  that  my 
method  is  sure  to  produce  results  in  the  shape  of  the 
location  of  the  missing  books,  I  think  you  will  be 
requested  to  attend  to  your  own  affairs,  of  which  this, 
by  the  bye,  is  not  one." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  demanded  Krafft. 

"Have  you  forgotten  that  the  girl  is  my  prisoner 
and  that  the  reason  for  your  remaining  here  ceased 
to  exist  when  we  buried  Van  Corlear  in  the  coal  cellar 
beyond  ?  I  suggest  that  you  report  to  Heinzmann  for 
further  duty.    /  do  not  need  you." 

The  barrier  of  Prussian  officialdom  rose  up  between 
Krafft  and  the  answer  he  desired  to  make.  What 
Knatchbuli  said  was  true;  Krafft  knew  it  as  well  as 
the  gloating  Knatchbuli,  who  thought  it  rather  glorious 
to  be  able  to  enrage  his  companion  with  such  impudent 
assurance,  yet  remain  wholly  within  rights  and  rules 
that  the  other  must  obey.    And  to  appear  as  cold  as 


A  LEAF  FROM  THE  KAISER'S  BOOK    243. 

ice,  and  seemingly  devoted  to  duty,  while  actually 
engaged  in  doing  what  he  enjoyed  immensely. 

"You  will  find  Heinzmann  at  Number  Three,"  he 
went  on  glibly,  "where  I  suggest  you  seek  him  after 
breakfast.  And  now" — ^he  yawned — "that  I  have 
shown  that  there  is  no  reason  in  your  remaining  in 
these  rooms  at  all,  will  you  oblige  me  by  going  ?  When 
you  came  in  I  had  just  begun  to  believe,  from  certain 
questions  the  girl  was  too  sleepy  to  answer  properly, 
that  your  man  Van  Corlear  had  told  her  where  his 
book  was.  Either  that,  or  some  one  on  the  outside 
knows  where  it  is,  and  will  get  it  before  we  do  if  we 
do  not  make  some  effort  to  locate  it.  You  followed 
the  man.  Now  that  he  is  gone,  follow  his  trail  until 
you  find  something.  Here  you  only  interrupt — and 
annoy  me." 

He  smiled  wickedly.  Krafft  clenched  his  fists  and 
stepped  closer  to  him. 

"Say  that  again,  and " 

"And  what?"  asked  Knatchbull  contemptuously, 
reaching  for  the  upraised  hand  and  pushing  it  aside. 
"I  am  doing  my  duty.    Are  you  ?" 

"You're  going  back  and  torture  that  girl?"  de- 
manded Krafft. 

"I  shall  keep  her  awake  until  I  find  out  whether 
the  plan  works — or  not.  Certainly.  Is  there  any- 
thing else  you  would  like  to  know?" 

Krafft's  eyes  fell  before  the  concentrated  malignity 
of  the  other's  gaze;  his  threats  remained  unuttered. 
Slowly,  unwillingly,  he  went  out.     For  the  moment 


244  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

he  felt  himself  weak.  It  was  only  when  out  of  Knatch- 
bull's  sight  that  his  courage  returned. 

"Damn  him!"  Krafft  thought.  "If  he  hurts  that 
girl,  I'll— I'll " 

He  dared  not  tell  even  himself  when  alone  the 
thought  that  came  to  him. 


CHAPTER  II 

In  Which  Norroy  Builds  a  Scaffold  to  Hang  a 
Hun  as  High  as  Haman 

INCREDIBLE  as  it  may  seem  to  those  best  ac- 
quainted with  that  estimable  exquisite  of  the 
department  of  state,  Yorke  Norroy,  esquire,  the 
first  day  of  February  found  that  gentleman  in  despair. 
Not  that  Max  Spiegel  had  not  succumbed  to  persua- 
sion. With  the  ingenuity  of  Yorke  Norroy  exclusively 
devoted  to  his  interests.  Max  Spiegel  had  weakened 
and  told  Norroy  about  the  underground  entrances  to 
such  league  hiding  places  as  he  knew. 

Norroy  had  not  liked  to  do  it,  but  other  and  cruder 
forms  of  threats  having  failed,  he  had  hesitated  to 
play  his  trump  hand  no  longer.  Very  late  on  the  night 
of  the  thirty-first,  he  had  sent  two  men  to  arrest 
Max  Spiegel's  son.  Him  he  marched  into  Spiegel's 
cell  at  midnight,  marking  the  occasion  with  many  fea- 
tures calculated  to  add  awe  and  strike  terror  to  the 
importunate  one,  and  told  him  crisply  that  if  the 
information  sought  was  not  immediately  forthcoming, 
he,  Yorke  Norroy,  would  hang  his  son  in  the  little 
courtyard  which  his  cell  overlooked. 

245 


246  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

Spiegel  had  not  believed  this,  and  had  continued 
to  refuse,  whereupon  Norroy  had  marched  young 
Spiegel  off  again — grimly.  Then  the  sounds  of  ham- 
mering began  outside  in  the  courtyard,  and  the  car- 
penters began  to  knock  together  a  hastily  improvised 
scaffold  in  the  light  of  the  torches.  Norroy  might 
have  used  the  dingy  electric  arcs  for  the  same  pur- 
poses, but  the  guttering  torches  were  far  more  effective. 

It  had  been  a  preternaturally  solemn  affair.  First 
came  guards  carrying  more  torches,  then  the  chaplain 
in  full  vestments,  then  more  guards,  and  finally  the 
prisoner,  carefully  keeping  his  back  to  Spiegel,  who, 
being  three  stories  away  and  forced  to  peer  between 
iron  bars,  saw  none  too  clearly,  anyhow.  It  seemed 
to  the  obdurate  old  man  that  his  son  was  receiving 
the  last  rites.  This  went  off  well  enough,  albeit  it 
became  somewhat  grisly ;  for  when  it  came  to  ascend- 
ing the  two  steps  of  the  rough  scaffold,  the  prisoner 
shied  violently  and  made  futile  efforts  to  escape,  which 
was  balked  by  the  brutal  guards,  who  belabored  him 
with  their  fists,  while  the  officer  in  charge  cut  him 
across  the  face  with  his  riding  whip.  All  of  which 
was  most  impressive  seen  amid  the  flickering  shadows 
cast  by  the  torches. 

It  was  when  the  prisoner  fell  to  his  knees  and 
seemed  to  be  begging  for  his  life  that  Norroy  had 
stepped  out  of  the  shadows  and  halted  the  execution 
for  the  moment.  But  long  before  he  entered  Spiegel's 
cell  he  could  hear  the  frantic  occupant  beating  on  his 
cell  door  far  down  the  corridor.  Once  more  in  Nor-f 
roy's  presence,  he  was  quite  willing,  if  not  insanely 


A  LEAF  FROM  THE  KAISER'S  BOOK    247 

anxious,  to  come  to  terms.  But,  to  Norroy's  exceed- 
ing sorrow,  his  revelation  brought  them  but  a  trifle 
nearer  to  Miss  Clovis  Clarke. 

But  before  he  heard  them,  Norroy  temporarily  in- 
creased the  national  debt  by  the  size  of  a  thumping 
check  which  he  handed  over  to  Montague  Spivins, 
esquire,  director  of  the  Vitanova  Moving  Picture  Com- 
pany to  recompense  that  gentleman  for  his  services 
and  those  of  the  actors  playing  the  officer  and  the 
guards,  not  to  mention  him  who,  attired  in  the  clothes 
of  Spiegel's  imprisoned  son,  had  made  up  sufficiently 
to  resemble  him  and  to  deceive  his  father  by  torchlight 
and  at  that  distance.  Also  for  the  services  of  the  two 
stage  carpenters  who  had  put  up  the  temporary  gallows. 

But,  Mr.  Spivins,  having  gathered  some  inkling  of 
the  reason  of  their  employment,  had  returned  the 
check  asking  only  to  be  favored  in  future  whenever 
he  could  fit  in,  a  sentiment  that  at  the  time  surprised 
Norroy,  but  with  which  he,  in  common  with  the  coun- 
try at  large,  was  to  become  familiar  before  many 
moons  had  waxed  and  waned. 

But  all  this  was  of  small  avail;  that  is,  so  far  as 
the  rescue  of  Qovis  Clarke  was  concerned.  It  was 
not  "small"  in  the  ordinary  sense,  since  it  acquainted 
Norroy  with  another  headquarters  of  the  league.  But, 
it  appeared,  that  was  the  only  place  of  which  Spiegel 
was  cognizant;  the  house  with  which  that  of  his  em- 
ployer, Henricus  Voegel,  was  directly  connected.  What 
other  houses  it  might  be  subterraneously  connected 
with,  Spiegel  did  not  know.  And  as  he  held  fast  to 
this  the  while  he  believed  his  son  to  have  his  neck 


248  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

in  a  noose,  Norroy  was  forced  to  credit  him  and  to 
send  the  pair  of  them  to  be  interned  in  the  South. 

A  day  and  a  night  had  passed  since  then,  and,  al- 
though a  close  watch  was  kept  on  both  places — 
Voegel's  and  that  other  on  West  End  Avenue  of  which 
Spiegel  had  apprised  him — Norroy's  watchers,  duly 
relieved,  brought  no  news.  No  one  had  entered  or  left 
either  house  who  had  not  a  good,  legitimate  reason 
for  doing  so — Henricus  Voegel  himself,  the  owner 
of  the  West  End  house,  one  Kleinschmidt  by  name, 
a  wealthy  brewer,  the  families  and  servants  of  both 
houses.  Besides  those  who  watched  the  houses,  there 
had  been  detailed  on  each  block  a  sufficient  number 
of  department-of-justice  agents  to  follow  every  one 
who  came  out  and  to  report  their  destinations  and 
their  reasons  for  seeking  them. 

More  than  that;  in  the  two  books  filled  with  the 
names  of  German  spies  and  already  in  Norroy's  pos- 
session, there  had  been  written  down  the  names  and 
addresses  of  no  fewer  than  three  hundred  and  ten 
league  members  residing  in  New  York  alone.  To  keep 
track  of  these  ladies  and  gentleman  had  been  no  easy 
task;  it  had  required  not  only  all  the  agents  of  the 
state  department  and  the  department  of  justice  at 
Norroy's  disposal,  but  central-office  men  and  members 
of  private  detective  agencies  also. 

So,  on  the  night  of  February  ist,  three  hundred 
and  ten  absolutely  useless  reports,  so  far  as  Clovis 
Clarke  was  concerned,  had  been  handed  to  Yorke  Nor- 
roy. It  was  with  these  suspects  as  it  had  been  with 
the  others. 


A  LEAF  FROM  THE  KAISER'S  BOOK    249 

It  was  after  the  lengthy  labor  of  going  over  these 
reports  that  Yorke  Norroy,  as  has  been  chronicled 
heretofore,  despaired.  But  not  for  long.  As  may 
be  evidenced  by  the  letter  received  on  the  following 
day  by  a  certain  Ludwig  von  Meister,  a  prominent 
Chicago  pork  packer  then  domiciled  in  New  York 
City.    The  letter  was  brief,  and  ran  as  follows: 

Dear  Sir: 

I  have  found  a  little  book  containing  your  autograph  and 
address  as  well  as  those  of  some  five  or  six  hundred  others.  As 
the  book  is  beautifull}'  bound  and  contains  so  many  autographs, 
it  must  be  of  great  value  to  the  owner  who  had  the  patience 
to  collect  so  many  of  them;  so  I  thought  perhaps  I  had  better 
notify  one  of  the  persons  whose  names  are  in  it. 

I  found  it  while  duck  shooting  yesterday  at  Setauket.  It 
had  e\'idently  fallen  out  of  somebody's  pocket,  for  it  was  half- 
buried  in  the  sand  above  high-water  mark.  If  you  know  whose 
it  is,  please  notify  the  owner  and  he  can  have  it  if  he  will  call 
at  1100  West  Seventh  Street,  on  the  undersigned. 

Richard  Mahony. 

This  letter,  casual  as  it  seemed,  was  the  result  of 
much  thought  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Norroy.  In  the 
first  place,  the  home  of  Clovis  Qarke  was  near 
Setauket,  and,  as  Knatchbull  and  his  friends  had 
turned  her  house  topsy-turvy  in  their  endeavors  to 
locate  this  very  book,  it  would  likely  occur  to  them 
that  the  book  was  hidden  somewhere  on  the  outside. 
In  the  second  place,  the  fact  that  the  writer  said  that 
he  had  found  it  "half  buried"  would  accord  well  with 
the  first  conjecture,  since  had  she  buried  it  hurriedly 
she  would  not  dig  deep  and  the  recent  rains,  might 
have  washed  away  the  top  covering  of  the  hole.     In 


2SO  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

the  third  place,  the  fact  that  each  name  and  address 
was  in  a  different  handwriting  made  plausible  the  as- 
sumption that  it  was  valuable  as  an  "autograph  book" 
on  which  many  people,  with  nothing  better  to  do,  set 
great  store.  As  for  Richard  Mahony,  he  was,  to  all 
intents  and  purposes,  an  unsuccessful  young  lawyer; 
there  was  no  one  out  of  the  service  who  knew  him 
for  a  Federal  agent,  and,  hitherto,  an  unimportant 
one. 

All  in  all,  it  was  just  the  sort  of  letter  that  a  kind- 
hearted  young  lawyer  with  lots  of  time  on  his  hands 
would  write,  and  although  the  leaguers  would  be  on 
the  alert  for  a  trap  the  chance  of  recovering  one  of 
these  inestimably  valuable  books  was  too  good  a  bait 
to  be  overlooked.  To  begin  with,  if  the  leaguers  could 
know  that  at  least  one  book  would  not  fall  into  enemy 
hands,  whosoever  had  his  name  in  that  book  could 
breathe  relief  on  its  recovery,  and  at  least  six  hundred 
of  them  would  be  free  to  continue  their  activities,  as 
free  from  suspicion  as  before. 

They  could  not  know,  of  course,  that  Ulric  Ulm, 
Baedeker  Bok,  Furnival,  and  Wammell  sat  up  half 
the  night  on  which  the  Mahony  letter  was  posted, 
copying  the  names  of  the  book  to  be  used  as  bait  into 
another,  so  that  none  of  its  value  to  the  government 
should  be  lost.  It  was  one  of  those  same  two  books 
Huntley  Carson  had  picked  up  in  Van  Corlear  Square 
when  he  should  have  found  the  entire  four. 

*Tn  fact,"  said  Norroy  sadly  as  he  thought  of  Clovis 
Clarke,  helpless  in  enemy  hands,  "even  if  it  does  not 
get  us  what  we  want,  it  will  give  this  lot  of  them 


A  LEAF  FROM  THE  KAISER'S  BOOK    251 

fancied  security,  which  will  make  them  less  careful 
where  they  go  and  to  whom.  And  as  all  of  them  are 
under  surveillance,  we  may  get  at  our  real  objective 
in  a  roundabout  way.  But  I  hope  the  way  will  be 
shorter — as  we  think  it  will." 

Needless  to  say,  Mr.  von  Meister  was  accorded  con- 
siderable attention  from  the  moment  his  morning  mail 
reached  him.  There  waited  in  the  alley  at  the  rear 
one  agent  in  the  guise  of  an  itinerant  vender,  offering 
sweetmeats  at  stable  doors  and  back-yard  entrances. 
Another  was  in  the  offing  in  front,  while  a  third  sat 
fitted  out  with  a  metal  cap  receiver,  waiting  for  him 
to  lift  his  telephone.  Not  that  he  or  Norroy,  who 
had  put  the  cap  on  him,  expected  Mr.  von  Meister 
to  do  anything  so  foolish  as  to  telephone.  But  in  the 
case  of  one  who  was  not  an  agent  by  profession,  only 
a  pork  packer,  all  sorts  of  unexpected  things  must  be 
expected  and  provided  for. 

But  Mr.  von  Meister  was  not  quite  that  foolish. 
He  was,  however,  foolish  enough  to  believe  that  he 
was  able,  even  if  watched  by  clever  agents — and  he 
did  not  know  whether  he  was  or  not — to  throw  them 
off  his  trail.  He  emerged  from  his  house  with  that 
belief  firmly  fixed  in  his  mind.  He  did  not  seem  to 
think  that  there  might  be  more  than  one  person  watch- 
ing him — if  any. 

His  trick  for  evading  the  attention  of  the  one  pos- 
sible person  was,  to  say  the  least,  clever.  And  had 
there  been  only  one,  he  would  have  succeeded.  But 
there  was  that  itinerant  vender  of  sweetmeats  at  the 
back,  and  when  that  gentleman — who  was  none  other 


252  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

than  Stanley  Jarboe — saw  Mr.  von  Meister's  second 
car  put  forth  from  her  moorings  only  five  minutes 
after  the  first  one  had  gone  off,  he  had  a  taxicab  near 
enough  to  keep  the  second  car  in  sight  as  it  sped  off 
toward  the  lower  city. 

The  man  who  had  followed  Mr.  von  Melster  in  his 
sky-blue  Daimler,  and  who  was  our  old  friend.  Van 
Gruenberg  Luyties,  had  wondered  why  the  driver  had 
proceeded  at  so  leisurely  a  pace.  He  did  not  know 
that  this  was  to  give  Von  Meister's  second  closed  car, 
which  had  started  five  minutes  later,  time  enough  to 
reach  Astor  Place  first.  But  Luyties,  never  having 
seen  the  second  car,  did  not  connect  the  two;  even 
when,  quite  naturally,  so  it  seemed,  they  managed  to 
jam  themselves  so  closely  together  that,  had  it  not 
been  for  their  running  boards,  their  paint  would  have 
been  badly  scratched. 

Side  by  side,  the  car  containing  Von  Melster,  and 
the  second  car,  containing  no  one  save  the  chauffeur, 
wedged  their  way  until  a  traffic  block  was  called.  Then, 
so  quickly  that  it  was  over  in  an  instant,  and  went 
unseen  by  any  save  the  driver  of  the  vehicle  imme- 
diately to  the  rear,  a  hand  reached  from  the  window 
of  the  sky-blue  car  and  opened  the  door  of  the  second 
car.  Whereupon  the  first  door  opened,  and,  head  and 
shoulders  bent  low.  Von  Meister  stepped  across  both 
running  boards  and  into  the  second  car,  a  dull  crimson 
Mercedes.  So  adroitly  did  he  manage  it  that  his  head 
hardly  showed  above  the  open  doors  of  both  cars. 

As  soon  as  he  was  safe  within  the  Mercedes,  he 
tapped  on  its  window,  then  shrank  back  into  its  depths, 


A  LEAF  FROM  THE  KAISER'S  BOOK    253 

and  Driver  Number  Two  warning  Driver  Number  One 
with  upraised  hand,  both  reached  out  and  shut  their 
open  doors  at  the  same  time  and  with  almost  military 
precision.  And  the  wondering  drayman  who  looked 
on  said:  "Blast  me!"  And  several  minutes  later: 
"Well,  I  am  blasted,  blast  me  if  I  ain't  blasted!'* 
Which,  for  him,  meant  that  he  had  been  stirred  beyond 
explicit  profanity. 

None  of  this  had  been  perceived  by  Mr.  van  Gruen- 
berg  Luyties  for  the  good  and  sufficient  reason  that 
to  avoid  the  appearance  of  pursuit  he  did  no  more 
than  keep  the  sky-blue  Daimler  in  sight,  and  was  there- 
fore half  a  block  away  and  having  all  he  could  do  to 
keep  there,  for  he  was  driving  his  own  roadster  and 
was  not  an  overskillful  driver.  Nor  was  it  noted  by 
Stanley  Jarboe,  who,  in  the  shelter  of  his  cab,  with 
curtains  drawn,  was  removing  the  last  vestiges  of  the 
vender's  attire,  and  had  left  the  spotting  of  the  dull 
crimson  car  to  the  minor  department-of-justice  agent 
who  drove  the  pseudo-taxicab  for  him.  Directly  be- 
tween this  and  its  quarry  was  interposed  the  bulky 
body  of  an  omnibus  that  plied  between  certain  distant 
car  lines  and  the  department  store  in  whose  interests 
it  was  employed  in  lieu  of  a  cross-town  car  line.  This 
omnibus  effectually  blocked  Jarboe's  driver's  line  of 
vision,  but  it  did  not  prevent  him  from  following  the 
crimson  car  as  before. 

Hence,  despite  all  his  cleverness,  when  Mr.  von 
Meister's  Mercedes  turned  off  Lafayette  Street  and 
back  uptown  again,  finally  drawing  up  before  an  old 
house  in  the  district  where  semiaristocratic  West  End 


254  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

Avenue  widens  into  the  vulgar  wastes  of  Tenth 
Avenue,  Stanley  Jarboe  followed  in  the  taxicab  and 
drifted  by  at  the  same  time  that  Von  Meister,  in  a 
heavy  coat  of  broadcloth,  with  an  almost  priceless 
sable  collar,  emerged  from  a  car  which  Jarboe  had  had 
every  reason  to  believe  untenanted. 

The  dull  crimson  car  drove  off  immediately,  and 
Jarboe,  instructing  his  driver  to  cruise  about  a  bit, 
presently  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  Von  Meister 
emerge  in  company  with  another  man,  whom  he  seemed 
to  be  instructing.  Telling  his  taxicab  driver  to  keep 
him  discreetly  in  sight,  Jarboe  followed  the  pair  on 
foot.  They  entered  the  subway,  and,  close  behind 
them  on  the  stairs,  Jarboe  saw  a  letter  pass  from  the 
sable-collared  gentleman's  hands  into  the  other's;  the 
hands,  although  Jarboe  did  not  know  it,  were  the  blunt- 
fingered  ones  of  Eitel  Krafft. 

Jarboe  entered  the  section  of  the  train  next  to  theirs, 
keeping  close  to  the  door,  so  that  when  the  fur- 
collared  gentleman's  companion  showed  signs  of  leav- 
ing at  Eighth  Street,  Jarboe  was  able  to  follow  him. 
He  did  this  somewhat  doubtfully ;  he  was  not  sure  the 
fur-collared  gentleman  was  not  the  more  important. 
But  undoubtedly  he  had  seen  a  letter  given  the  other, 
and  the  address  of  Richard  Mahony  was  near  Eighth 
Street,  and  Jarboe  was  too  accomplished  a  student 
of  the  methods  of  Mr.  Yorke  Norroy  to  fail  to  corre- 
late the  two. 

He  was  joyful  indeed  when  he  saw  that  he  had 
done  the  right  thing,  and  a  little  later  was  announcing 
this  fact  over  the  wire  to  Mr.  Norroy  himself  from 


A  LEAF  FROM  THE  KAISER'S  BOOK    255 

a  little  tobacco  shop  across  the  street  from  Mahony's 
apartment  house,  which  Jarboe  had  just  had  the 
pleasure  of  seeing  Krafft  enter. 

Norroy  was  fortunately  not  far  off.  He  was  at  his 
headquarters  in  the  tower  of  the  tallest  building  north 
of  Park  Row  and  overlooking  a  certain  square.  Here 
he  sat,  like  a  field  marshal  in  his  tent,  a  good  half 
dozen  telephone  receivers  in  easy  reach,  one  after  an- 
other tinkling  every  few  moments  as  Furnival  thrust 
plugs  in  and  pulled  them  out  of  the  switchboard  in 
the  next  room.  Frequently  that  morning,  Norroy  had 
held  intermittent  conversations  with  five  agents  at  the 
same  time,  at  points  whose  distance  from  him  varied 
from  a  minute's  walk  to  a  day's  railroad  journey. 

"Carson,"  Norroy  called,  "take  charge.  Call 
Mahony  up.  We've  drawn  our  badger.  He's  at 
Mahony's  now,  Jarboe  outside.  Telephone  Mahony 
to  keep  his  man  there  on  any  pretext  until  he  hears 
motor  warning  number  two  from  my  horn  below.'* 

The  car  into  which  Norroy  leaped,  and  which  was 
kept  for  his  especial  use,  seemed  no  more  than  an 
ordinary  taxicab.  Conspicuous  cars,  in  common  with 
conspicuous  persons,  were  not  best  qualified  for  keep- 
ing watch  upon  others  while  remaining  one's  self  un- 
observed. But  an  expert  in  motor  engines  could  have 
told  you  that  this  one  belonging  to  the  shabby  taxicab 
could  do  its  ninety  miles  without  serious  consequences, 
and,  at  a  pinch,  could  pass  the  hundred  mark,  yet  keep 
to  the  road.  It  is,  therefore,  not  surprising  that  it 
covered  in  so  surprisingly  short  a  time  the  distance  be* 
tween  the  square  in  which  the  tower  stood  and  the 


2s6  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

house  of  Mr.  Mahony,  an  old  brownstone  front  of 
early-Victorian  architecture,  built  when  apartment 
houses  were  the  exception  rather  than  the  rule. 

Norroy  himself  doubted  the  wisdom  of  undertaking 
personal  supervision  of  this  affair,  but  he  had  visited 
the  bedside  of  young  Petersham,  as  was  his  custom 
early  morning  and  late  at  night,  only  an  hour  before, 
and  the  grave  look  of  the  great  surgeon  who  had 
finally  found  it  necessary  to  operate,  and  the  lack  of 
recognition  in  the  glassy  eyes  the  delirious  boy  had 
turned  to  the  man  who,  above  all  others,  he  loved  and 
revered  had  revived  anew  in  Norroy  the  desire  for 
personal  conflict  with  those  responsible  for  his  state. 

As  the  car  swept  by  Mahony's  house,  the  driver 
touched  the  button  which  communicated  with  the  horn, 
and,  strident  and  shrill,  like  the  shriek  of  a  hawk, 
came  the  code  warning.  And  although  the  car  went 
its  way,  turning  the  corner  in  such  a  wide  curve  that 
it  seemed  it  would  be  blocks  away  before  it  stopped, 
actually  it  had  hardly  passed  from  the  sight  of 
Mahony's  windows  before  Norroy  was  on  the  pave- 
ment, and  Jarboe,  who  had  also  heard  the  awaited 
signal  and  had  hurried  after  the  car,  had  joined  him. 

A  little  later,  Krafft  made  his  exit  from  Mahony's 
house,  wearing  a  look  of  such  supreme  satisfaction  that 
Norroy  hardly  needed  the  touch  of  Jarboe's  fingers  on 
his  elbow.  The  spy  turned  toward  Washington  Square. 
Norroy  followed  at  a  respectful  distance.  / 

But  it  was  not  the  Norroy  whom  everybod)''  knew, 
fiot  by  a  great  deal.  All  cars  used  by  the  corps  had 
false  panels  fitted  in  their  walls  which,   when  they 


A  LEAF  FROM  THE  KAISER'S  BOOK    257 

slid  back,  revealed  all  that  was  requisite  for  many 
complete  changes  of  identity. 

Therefore,  the  man  who  parted  from  Stanley  Jarboe 
resembled  just  the  sort  of  man  one  expected  to  see 
in  the  vicinity  of  Washington  Square — a  dark-visaged 
fellow  who  once,  in  his  native  Sicily,  might  have  worn 
earrings  and  whose  lemon-tinted  shoes,  and  necktie  that 
looked  as  though  it  was  a  part  of  Joseph's  coat,  in- 
tensified his  swarthiness.  Just  the  sort  one  saw  by 
hundreds  in  Little  Italy,  just  south  of  the  square; 
the  prosperous  owner  of  a  news  stand  or  small  fruit 
store.  To  further  carry  out  his  identity,  this  person 
was  whistling  "Funicula,"  whistling  it  so  raucously, 
indeed,  that  the  man  he  was  following  quickened  his 
steps  to  be  out  of  earshot  of  the  horrible  noise. 

But  even  this  did  not  serve  to  destroy  Eitel  Krafft's 
good  nature.  He  patted  the  pocket  that  held  the 
precious  book.  He  was  pleased  on  more  accounts  than 
one.  For,  if  this  was  the  book  that  Clovis  Clarke  had 
hidden — and  it  seemed  there  could  be  no  doubt  of 
that — then  there  could  be  no  reason  for  keeping  her 
a  prisoner  any  longer.  Above  all  things,  he  wanted 
to  look  into  the  very  blue  eyes  of  Miss  Clovis  Qarke 
without  that  film  falling  between  them  and  shutting 
him  out  as  if  he  had  never  existed. 

The  shrill  whistling  of  "Funicula"  did  not  bother 
him.  In  fact,  as  he  neared  Irving  Place,  he  began  to 
whistle  softly  himself.  And  thus  it  was,  through  cer- 
tain unexpected  emotions  on  the  part  of  a  not  thor- 
oughly Prussianized  martinet,  Yorke  Norroy  got  more 
than  he  bargained  for  when  he  started  to  follow  the 


2S8  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

recipient  of  the  book  in  the  hope  of  discovering  the 
main  headquarters  of  the  league ;  for  had  Krafft  gone 
there,  as  he  was  expected  to  do,  Norroy  would  have 
been  as  far  off  from  Clovis  Clarke  as  before. 


CHAPTER  III 

Tells  How  the  Last  of  the  Van  Duyckincks 
Differed  from  the  Last  of  the  Van  Corlears 

IT  is  impossible  to  explain  the  art  of  following 
another  without  being  one's  self  observed ;  "tail- 
ing," the  underworld  calls  it.  If  the  average 
unskilled  person  attempts  it  for  even  a  short  period 
he  is  promptly  detected.  In  the  first  place,  such  a  one 
would  be  betrayed  by  that  telepathic  current  which 
causes  one  to  turn  one's  head  and  stare  directly  at  any 
one  else  after  a  certain  amount  of  that  one's  undivided 
attention.  The  adept  in  shadowing  overcomes  this 
without  realizing  the  psychological  import  of  how  he 
does  it;  forgetting  entirely  the  person  he  shadows,  so 
engaged  is  he  in  making  himself  inconspicuous.  How 
he  does  this  he  alone  knows.  It  is  a  matter  of  ex- 
perience. 

In  the  present  instance,  Norroy  counted  upon 
Krafft's  conviction  that  Richard  Mahony  was  no  more 
than  he  claimed  to  be.  Why  else  would  he  have  sur- 
rendered the  book,  which  was  genuine  beyond  the 
shadow  of  a  doubt.  As  Norroy  expected,  Krafft,  as 
well  as  Von  Meister,  had  been  uneasily  aware  that  he 
was  putting  his  head  into  a  trap  when  he  had  anything 

259 


26o  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

to  do  with  Norroy's  note.  Besides,  as  Norroy  did  not 
count  upon  or  expect,  Krafft  was  too  concerned  with 
the  possible  fate  of  the  girl  he  loved — ^he  freely  ad- 
mitted it  now,  his  love — and  too  elated  over  recover- 
ing the  book  that  would  free  her  to  bother  about  any- 
thing so  farfetched  as  a  belief  that  he  himself  was 
under  surveillance.  If  this  was  so,  why  had  he  not 
been  apprehended  long  ago? 

It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  Yorke  Norroy 
was  not  half  a  block  away  when  Krafft  entered  the 
rear  garden  of  the  Duyckinck  house. 

Norroy  could  hardly  believe  the  evidence  of  his 
eyes.  Killian  Duyckinck  a  traitor?  It  was  unbeliev- 
able. From  the  moment  that  the  secret  agent  could 
no  longer  doubt  its  truth  a  red  wrath  took  possession 
of  him.  He  forgot  his  customary  caution;  forgot 
everything  except  that,  if  such  as  the  last  of  the  Duyck- 
incks  was  in  league  against  the  country  his  fore- 
fathers for  three  hundred  years  or  more  had  helped 
to  build,  then  indeed  that  country  was  lost,  for  who 
could  be  trusted? 

For  the  first  time  in  many  years,  Yorke  Norroy 
acted  on  impulse.  He  turned  the  corner  to  the  Irving 
Place  entrance  of  the  old  Duyckinck  house,  ascended 
the  steps,  and  rang  the  bell. 

He  had  no  difficulty  in  identifying  the  servant  for 
just  what  he  was — a  Germant  peasant  of  Max  Spiegel's 
class.  When  he  told  the  man  that  he  wished  to  see 
Mr,  Duyckinck  about  a  "little  bill,"  the  servant  grinned. 

"You  von't  get  it,"  he  said.  "But  I'll  call  him.  Vait 
here." 


A  LEAF  FROM  THE  KAISER'S   BOOK    261 

When  he  turned,  so  did  Mr,  Yorke  Norroy.  One 
arm  shot  diagonally  across  the  other's  front,  edged 
up  the  chin,  and  kept  it  up  at  an  uncertain  angle. 
Simultaneously  he  seized  the  dangling  fingers  of  the 
fellow's  left  hand,  first  forcing  them  backward,  then 
doubling  over  the  wrist  so  sharply  that  a  bone  snapped. 
One  hand  thus  left  helpless,  Norroy  slackened  some- 
what his  grim  grip  upon  the  German's  neck  and  jaw; 
one  that  if  long  continued  would  have  meant  death. 

"I'm  loosing  you  a  little,"  he  warned  in  a  whisper; 
"but  if  you  make  the  slightest  sound  I'll  have  to  break 
your  neck.  Keep  quiet  Until  I  bind  and  gag  you,  and 
you'll  be  none  the  worse  except  for  that  broken  wrist." 

Norroy  had  taken  momentary  silence  for  granted, 
and  he  was  well  on  his  way  to  the  completion  of  half 
his  task  before  ceasing  to  speak.  When  the  man  was 
firmly  secured  by  Norroy's  belt,  his  arms  doubled  be- 
hind him  and  held  crooked  around  the  secret  agent's 
walking  stick,  Norroy  pushed  him  to  his  knees.  Here 
holding  one  palm  to  his  prisoner's  mouth  lest,  despite 
warning,  he  make  any  vocal  attempts,  Norroy,  with 
that  placid  haste  remarkable  to  him  when  on  the  most 
dangerous  of  duties,  flipped  out  from  eyelet  after  eye- 
let his  boot  lace.  This  leather  lace,  together  with  his 
fountain  pen  and  a  certain  gaudy  silk  handkerchief 
that  was  part  of  the  make-up  of  a  prosperous  voter 
from  Little  Italy,  served  to  construct  a  very  creditable 
gag,  which  was  put  in  position  in  a  space  of  time  not 
greatly  in  excess  of  that  it  takes  to  tell  of  it. 

Remained  only  the  captive's  feet.    If  they  were  left 
unsecured,  the  man,  tied  up  and  gagged  as  he  was — 


262  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

painful  though  the  journey  would  be — could  crawl 
back  to  the  kitchen,  where,  if,  as  Norroy  imagined, 
he  had  a  companion,  the  sight  of  him  would  be  enough 
to  wreck  the  plan  the  secret  agent  proposed  to  attempt. 

But  the  feet  did  not  long  remain  a  problem.  There 
were  velvet  draperies  covering  the  half-drawn  doors 
of  the  darkened  drawing-room.  To  hold  them  in  their 
folds  there  must  be  about  somewhere  certain  silken 
cords. 

It  was  too  dark  to  see  these  highly  necessary  and 
desperately  desired  agents  of  duress,  but  Norroy  knew 
where  they  should  be,  and,  running  his  hand  up  and 
down  the  draperies  near  the  woodwork,  he  found,  first 
a  brass  hook,  then  a  cord  tied  in  a  drooping  bow.  He 
needed  no  more  than  one  cord  for  his  present  purpose ; 
but  that  the  man  might  not  free  himself  from  it  by 
rubbing  together  his  ankles  or  his  knees,  Norroy  made 
a  loose  loop  over  the  walking  stick  in  the  middle  of 
the  prisoner's  back.  This  was  drawn  taut  as  the  cord 
was  whisked  under  the  man's  knees,  bringing  them 
up  so  that  they  touched  his  chin.  When  the  other  end 
of  the  cord  also  adorned  the  walking  stick,  the  warder 
of  Killian  Duyckinck's  door  resembled  nothing  so  much 
as  a  trussed  fowl. 

Norroy  put  out  a  tentative  foot  and  pushed  him  into 
the  shadows  of  the  darkened  drawing-room.  The  man 
rolled  like  a  football;  a  second  push  and  he  was  out 
of  sight.  Norroy  unloosened  and  pocketed  the  other 
drapery  cord,  for  possible  use  in  the  near  future, 
brought  the  folding  doors  nearer  together,  and  cor- 
respondingly advanced  the  positions  of  the  two  por- 


A  LEAF  FROM  THE  KAISER'S  BOOK    265 

tieres.  Then  he  went  up  the  stairs,  two  at  a  time, 
toward  where  he  beUeved  Killian  Duyckinck's  quarters 
were  apt  to  be. 

Norroy  had  known  the  last  Duyckinck  as  men  of 
that  kind  are  apt  to  know  one  another. 

Killian  Duyckinck,  whose  birth  had  preceded  Nor- 
roy's  by  a  decade  or  so,  had  found  nothing  he  wanted 
to  do  except  to  spend  the  little  that  a  set  of  spend- 
thrifts had  left  behind.  It  did  not  take  long  to  do 
that,  so  after  the  last  Duyckinck  had  sold  his  last 
bit  of  tangible  property,  he  began  to  realize  on  the 
intangible,  and  sold  his  name  and  position  to  an  am- 
bitious Oregonian  who  wanted  a  New  York  social 
position  for  her  daughter  in  exchange  for  some  of  her 
deceased  husband's  dollars.  Having  spent  as  many  of 
these  as  he  could  get,  the  death  of  his  wife  had  left 
him  with  very  little  to  go  on  with.  And  as  "society" 
had  completely  altered  since  his  salad  days,  Killian 
Duyckinck  had  found  himself  a  middle-aged,  more-or- 
less  discredited  hanger-on — a  hanger-on  to  the  fringes 
of  that  very  society  of  which  he  had  once  been  a  cen- 
tral figure. 

Then  one  day  he,  a  Duyckinck,  having  been  "posted** 
too  long,  had  been  quietly  dropped  by  the  club  for 
which  his  father  had  "put  him  up"  while  he  was  a  boy. 

It  must  have  been  at  that  time  that  he  had  been 
"approached,"  had  sold  the  last  thing  he  had  to  sell, 
the  shelter  of  his  good  name,  the  name  of  his  ancestors, 
the  indubitable  belief  in  a  Duyckinck  being,  if  notliing 
else,  a  sound  American. 

It  was  the  thought  of  this  that  had  burned  in  Yorke 


264  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

Norroy's  brain,  had  burned  so  fiercely  that  for  the 
moment  he  forgot  prudence,  forgot  everything  he 
should  have  remembered,  once  he  saw  Krafft  enter  the 
gate  of  Killian  Duyckinck. 

There  must  have  been  something  of  all  this  in  his 
eyes  when  he  burst  in  upon  Killian,  seated  at  his  ease, 
a  novel  in  his  hand.  At  his  elbow  was  a  glass  humidor 
bearing  the  Duyckinck  crest  and  his  own  monogram, 
a  humidor  containing  the  sort  of  cigars  one  cannot 
buy  across  the  counter.  Flanking  it  was  a  similar  but 
smaller  humidor  containing  cigarettes  made  from 
sun-ripened  Smyrna  tobacco;  grown,  he  would 
tell  you,  in  a  garden  where  the  soil  had  been  cultivated 
two  thousand  years,  and  on  a  wall  cunningly  protected 
from  sudden  frosts  and  shaded  from  too  hot  a  sun 
by  tricks  and  devices  known  only  to  a  few  private 
tobacco  growers,  who,  being  the  sons  and  grandsons 
and  great-grandsons  of  other  and  very  ancient  tobacco 
growers,  grew  tobacco  as  some  paint  pictures  and 
others  write  books — in  order  that  they  may  have  a 
hand  in  the  making  of  a  perfect  thing. 

There  were  many  evidences  in  this  comfortable 
room  of  the  price  for  which  he  had  sold  himself.  On 
the  little  wicker  rack  near  by,  Killian's  man  Olcott 
was  placing  a  plate  of  ripe  peaches  worth  their  weight 
in  gold  almost  at  that  time  of  year.  And  the  breakfast 
tea  brewing  in  the  silver  urn  was  the  sort  that,  even 
in  Petrograd,  costs  a  ruble  a  cup.  Its  price  in  New 
York  should  have  been  beyond  the  purchasing  power 
of  any  one  who  did  not  have  at  least  a  five-figure 
income. 


A  LEAF  FROM  THE  KAISER'S  BOOK    265 

The  whole  tone  of  the  room  was  blue,  just  as  the 
character  of  it  was  Jacobean.  It  was  a  beautiful  room, 
and  the  sun  streamed  through  the  old  windows  as  if  it 
loved  it.  And  well  in  keeping  with  the  room  was  this 
youthful-ancient  aristocrat  in  a  dressing  gown  of 
Spitalfields  silk,  also  of  blue,  and  a  flowing  silk  stock 
collar  that  matched  it  and  evidently  worn  to  disguise 
his  pajamas.  There  he  sat,  a  little  card  table  pushed 
into  the  window  recess,  and  in  the  full  enjoyment  of  \ 
his  breakfast  and  the  early-morning  sunlight  which 
shone  on  the  silver  and  crystal  and  eggshell  china  of 
his  breakfast  table. 

He  had  looked  up  angrily  at  Norroy's  entrance.  But 
the  anger  faded  out  and  fear  took  its  place  when  he 
saw  who  it  was.  Not  that  he  knew  of  Norroy's  state- 
department  connection ;  that  was  a  secret  that  had  been 
well  kept  during  the  secret  agent's  twenty  years  of 
service ;  few  outsiders  knew  of  that  except  the  enemies 
who  feared  him. 

Norroy's  face  was  so  grim  that  it  was  terrifying. 

"Send  your  man  away,  Duyckinck,"  he  commanded. 
"Not  downstairs,  though.     Next  room.    At  once!" 

The  tone  added  another  terror  to  the  aroused  guilty 
conscience.  He  was  almost  afraid  for  Olcott  to  go. 
Olcott  had  been  with  him  since  childhood.  He  was 
the  one  creature  on  earth  who  loved  him,  and  for  no 
selfish  reason ;  as  a  father  loves  a  son. 

Yet  he  dared  not  disobey.  He  nodded,  and  the 
gray-headed  servitor  went  out  and  closed  the  door 
behind  him» 

"Now,  you  miserable  traitor,"  said  Yorke  Norroy 


a66  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

in  his  iciest  tone,  "just  tell  me  one  thing,  and  tell  me 
quickly.  This  house  is  built  on  one  of  the  Revolu' 
tionary  sites.  It  probably  has  some  kind  of  an  under- 
ground passage.  Tell  me  where  it  is  and  how  to 
get  to  it." 

For  Norroy  had  been  aware,  for  some  time,  that 
the  league  had  been  in  possession  of  a  certain  old 
map,  drawn  during  the  Revolutionary  War  and  show- 
ing the  various  secret  methods  of  entrance  and  egress 
from  the  houses  of  those  patriots  who  harbored 
colonial  spies  during  the  British  possession  of  New 
York.  At  that  time,  the  house  of  the  Duyckincks  had 
stood  on  land  that  had  been  the  old  Stuyvesant 
bouwerie,  just  outside  New  York  proper.  The  house 
in  Van  Corlear  Square,  although  farther  away,  had 
been  on  just  such  another  plot  of  ground.  So,  too, 
had  the  house  which,  that  morning,  Stanley  Jarboe 
had  located.  Norroy  had  recognized  the  site  instantly. 
Of  the  three  headquarters  of  the  leaguers  only  one, 
Henricus  Voegel's,  had  not  some  such  history.  But 
Voegel's  house  had  been  his  own  and  had  been  built 
in  an  age  when  it  was  reckoned  that  it  would  never 
be  necessary  to  have  hidden  places  in  which  to  house 
conspirators  again.  So  it  was  probable,  since  the 
league  had  voluntarily  chosen  the  Duyckinck  house, 
that  some  such  secret  way  existed. 

"Listen!"  said  Yorke  Norroy.  "I  don't  know 
whether  you  realize  it  or  not,  but  this  coimtry  will  be 
at  war  with  Germany  within  another  month.  I  prefer 
to  forget  that  you  have  harbored  the  kind  of  people 
who  made  the  crucifixion  of  Belgium  possible — ^j'ou. 


A  LEAF  FROM  THE   KAISER'S  BOOK    267 

an  American  of  the  old  stock,  of  the  sort  of  family 
that  one  was  proud  to  point  out  as  Americans.  I  am 
going  through  this  affair  as  best  I  can  without  letting 
it  be  known  that  you  were  mixed  up  in  it.  It  would 
not  do  for  the  world  to  know  that  a  Duyckinck  was 
a  traitor.  After  that  we  could  trust  nobody.  Tell  me 
where  that  secret  way  is.  Then,  when  I  am  through 
here,  invent  some  story  that  will  account  for  the 
presence  of  German  bomb  throwers  and  munition  de- 
stroyers, fire  bugs,  and  assassins  in  your  house.  Blame 
it  on  unknown  servants.  Get  Olcott  to  back  you  up. 
I  will  never  tell  the  truth,  depend  upon  it.  You  did 
it  for  money,  I  suppose." 

His  voice  trembling,  his  face  gray,  Duyckinck  told 
him.    Norroy  prepared  to  go. 

*Tf  I  do  not  return  to  this  room  within  fifteen 
minutes,"  he  said,  "you  will  telephone  that  num- 
ber  " 

He  wrote  It  down  on  a  gold-mounted  pad. 

*Tn  that  way  you  will  manage  to  clear  yourself — 
to  them.  At  least  I  hope  so,  for  your  name's  sake. 
Tell  them  there  where  I  am,  who  you  are,  and  how 
your  servants  deceived  you."  He  paused.  *T  hope 
God  can  forgive  you,"  he  said  finally;  *T  cannot." 

He  went  out,  leaving  behind  him  a  man  who  had 
aged  ten  years  in  ten  minutes. 


CHAPTER  IV 

How  Herr  Knatchbull  Came  to  Hold  Up  Both 

Hands 

The  Narrative  of  Miss  Clovis  Clarke 

1NOW  come  to  the  happenings  of  the  last  day  of 
my  imprisonment, 

I  know  I  am  not  sufficiently  versed  in  the  use 
of  words  to  express  emotions  or  paint  pictures  to  give 
you  any  idea  of  what  I  suffered  during  the  days  that 
followed  the  death  of  Mr.  Van  Corlear.  On  looking 
over  what  I  have  written,  it  reads  like  a  set  of  statistics 
combined  with  a  schoolgirl's  diary.  But  since  I  have 
done  my  best,  I  will  let  the  stuff  stand  as  written, 
with  the  fervent  hope,  however,  that  if  it  is  to  be 
published,  that  some  one  more  skillful  than  myself  in 
the  art  of  composition  will  edit  it  almost  out  of  ex- 
istence. 

For,  reading  it  over,  I  must  confess  it  gives  ab- 
solutely no  idea  of  the  horror  and  misery  I  endured 
at  that  detestable  Knatchbull's  hands.  Not  that  he 
touched  me — you  see  how  faulty  my  diction  is — ^be- 
cause he  didn't.  He  did  nothing  except  sit  and  stare 
for  two  days  and  nights,  as  I  have  written,  and  if  I 

268 


A  LEAF  FROM  THE   KAISER'S  BOOK    269 

so  much  as  closed  my  eyes  he  got  up  and  started 
toward  me  with  the  stealthy  tread  of  a  tiger  stalking 
its  prey,  which  promptly  drove  away  all  possibility  of 
sleeping. 

It  was  not  so  much  that  he  threatened  anything. 
It  was  his  silence  and  his  stare  and  the  imaginary 
images  both  evoked.  My  brain  could  picture  him  do- 
ing things  far  more  horrible  than  anything  he  could 
put  into  words. 

And  that  was  just  it.  Give  the  man  the  horrible 
credit  that  is  his.  He  had  a  positive  genius  for  evil. 
His  psychology  was  uncanny.  He  knew  somehow  that 
I  loved  my  country  well  enough  to  have  steeled  my- 
self to  endure  whatever  befell  sooner  than  give  up  the 
secret  of  the  books.  I  speak  of  them  in  the  plural 
because  this  weird,  psychic  genius  had  soon  surmised 
that  the  poor  dead  man  had  told  me  his  secret;  I 
mean  Mr.  Van  Corlear,  who  committed  suicide  sooner 
than  give  up  the  book  our  inhuman  captor  wanted  so 
badly. 

That  is  the  word  that  best  describes  Knatchbull — 
inhuman. 

No  doubt  he  would  have  been  brutal  enough,  even 
if  he  had  never  used  cocaine.  But  in  a  normal  state 
there  may  have  been  occasional  twinges  of  conscience. 
Perhaps  Knatchbull  had  discovered  that  the  use  of 
the  drug  put  an  end  to  tliese  and  left  him  free  to  do 
whatsoever  he  willed  with  his  own  entire  approval.  As 
to  that  I  cannot  say ;  but  while  I  will  always  sympathize 
with  morphine  sufferers  for  poor  Mr.  Van  Corlear's 
sake — for  in  his  case,  while  in  the  grip  of  a  habit  he 


270  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

hated,  at  least  it  did  not  rob  him  o£  his  honor — ^I 
wish  to  go  on  record  with  the  statement  that  there 
can  be  no  possible  excuse  for  those  who  use  cocaine. 
It  is  mere  bestial  gratification. 

Which  brings  me  back  to  the  third  day  of  my  enforced 
sleeplessness,  confronting  KnatchbuU.  He  had  retired 
for  the  first  time  in  eight  hours  and  had  changed  his 
clothes;  had  also  taken  a  few  moments,  doubtless,  to 
give  himself  a  large  dose  of  his  drug,  for  he  returned 
as  wide  awake  as  ever,  eyes  gleaming  and  glassy,  and 
came  very  close  to  where  I  had  fallen  into  a  light  doze. 

I,  you  may  well  believe,  felt  more  dead  than  alive. 
To  sit  stiffly  for  two  days  and  nights  with  nothing  to 
do  and  nothing  to  read,  imprisoned  in  a  stuffy  under- 
ground chamber,  and  facing  a  man  of  whom  you  stand 
in  deadly  fear  is  more  than  any  girl's  nerves  will  stand. 
So  when  he  returned  and  came  so  close  that  his  face 
almost  touched  mine  my  self-control  gave  way  and  I 
screamed. 

"So,"  he  said  in  that  guttural  way  tliat  led  me  to 
believe  he  really  was  a  German,  although  I  had  heard 
him  deny  that  he  was  to  tlie  other  man,  Krafft,  and 
to  defy  him  to  guess  just  what  his  nationality  was. 
"So!  You  give  in  at  last,  do  you?  I  thought  you 
would,  if  I  gave  you  enough  of  my  fascinating  com- 
panionship." 

Then  a  bold  idea  came  to  me.  Its  success  meant 
five  or  six  hours'  sleep,  which  would  strengthen  me 
for  another  siege,  unless  it  angered  him  so  much  that 
he  decided  to  kill  me.  And  I  was  beginning  to  be 
as  tortured  for  want  of  sleep  as  poor  Mr.  Van  Corlear 


A  LEAF  FROM  THE  KAISER'S  BOOK    271 

had  for  want  of  that  other  thing,  and  thought  that 
I  would  rather  die  than  stay  awake  any  longer.  One 
who  has  not  experienced  tliis  torture  of  being  kept 
awake  forcibly  cannot  understand. 

"Yes."  I  continued  to  scream.  "Yes.  Keep  away 
from  me.  Let  me  go  to  sleep.  I  must  sleep.  Let  me 
sleep.    I'll  tell  you  anything.    Only  let  me  sleep." 

"So!"  he  breathed  softly.  "So!  Well,  tell  me,  and 
you  shall  sleep." 

"Go  along  the  bank  of  the  little  stream  near  our 
house  for  about  two  minutes'  walk  until  you  come 
to  a  willow  tree.  There  are  little  willows  growing 
up  all  around  the  big  one,  so  that  they  hide  the  hollow 
in  its  trunk.  The  book  is  in  the  hollow.  You  can't 
miss  it.'* 

Some  angel  of  invention  must  have  whispered  the 
words  to  me,  for  I  rattled  them  off  as  if  they  were 
uppermost  in  my  mind.  They  seemed  to  convince 
KnatchbuU  well  enough,  especially  as  they  were 
shrieked  out  hysterically.  The  hysterical  part  of  it 
was  not  necessarily  assumed.  If  it  was,  I  had  much 
less  trouble  assuming  it  than  I  had  had  hitherto  in 
keeping  from  showing  it. 

I  threw  myself  down  on  the  bunk  and  buried  my 
face  in  the  pillow. 

"Good !"  commented  KnatchbuU.  "Very  good.  For 
you,  my  dear  young  lady.  For  I  must  tell  you  that 
I  had  about  made  up  my  mind  to  give  up  my  present 
method  and  leave  you  here  without  any  food  or  water 
for  a  few  days — perhaps  a  week,  in  case  of  obstinacy. 
If,  in  the  interim,  you  should  die "    He  shrugged 


272  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

his  shoulders.  "Well,  dead  you  are  no  menace  to  us. 
It  is  only  when  you  are  alive  that  you  can  tell  your 
countrymen  where  those  books  are.  We  do  not  want 
the  books  so  much  as  we  want  to  make  sure  that  no 
Americans  get  them.  Therefore  your  death  would 
solve  matters  very  neatly.  So,  you  see,  I  have  been 
exceedingly  forbearing  with  you,  and  you  should  ap- 
preciate  " 

He  was  always  exceedingly  wordy  just  after  a  dose 
of  the  horrible  stuff;  that  is,  for  a  while.  Then  he 
would  sink  into  sullen  silence,  during  which  he  would 
eye  me  in  that  way  I  have  spoken  of,  his  attitude  one 
that  made  the  wildest  conjectures  on  my  part  seem 
quite  possible,  even  exceedingly  probable.  But  this 
time  he  was  not  allowed  time  enough  to  work  off  even 
the  wordy  state.  There  came  a  knock  on  the  door 
in  the  code  I  had  grown  to  know  as  heralding  the 
other  man,  Krafft. 

When  the  door  opened,  I  heard  Knatchbull  ask  with 
that  sort  of  silky  politeness  which  meant  he  was  dread- 
fully annoyed:  "Cannot  I  impress  upon  you,  my  dear 
fellow,  that  your  society,  charming  as  it  is,  is  super- 
fluous ?  Has  Heinzmann  nothing  better  for  you  to  do 
than  annoy  me?" 

I  heard  Krafft  whisper  something,  and,  peeping  up, 
saw  him  draw  Knatchbull  out  into  the  other  room  and 
half  close  the  door.  Some  conversation  ensued,  dur- 
ing which  both  grew  extremely  excited,  although  their 
voices  were  not  raised  high  enough  for  me  to  hear 
what  they  said  at  first. 

But  it  was  soon  apparent  that  the  sullen,  ugly  rjiger 


A  LEAF  FROM  THE  KA.ISER'S  BOOK    273 

had  fallen  upon  Knatchbull  again;  for,  when  Krafft 
laughed,  he  burst  out  with: 

"It's  a  lie.  The  girl  has  just  told  me  where  she 
hid  the  book.  And  it  was  nowhere  near  the  place 
you " 

"Showing,  my  dear  fellow,"  said  Krafft,  raising  his 
voice,  too,  and  imitating  Knatchbull's  former  silkiness, 
"tliat  your  wonderful  method  has  its  failures.  For, 
as  it  happens,  here  is  the  book." 

My  heart  sank  as  I  heard  this  statement  verified 
by  a  violent  oath  from  Knatchbull,  who  now  tore 
back  to  the  room  in  which  I  lay,  confronting  me  with 
just  the  same  sort  of  thin  volume  as  the  one  I  had  so 
carefully  hidden — not  in  the  hollow  willow  tree,  need- 
less to  say.  Naturally  I  imagined  that  I  identified  it. 
My  face  must  have  showed  this. 

"So  you  would  send  me  on  a  fool's  errand,  would 
you?"  he  demanded.  "Now  you  shall  have  what  I 
promised  you  a  few  moments  before.  We  shall  see 
what  loneliness  and  hunger  and  lack  of  water  will  do." 

He  turned,  ignoring  Krafft,  who  had  entered  from 
the  other  room,  and  began  to  attire  himself  for  the 
street ;  for,  although  he  had  changed  his  clothes  a  few 
moments  before,  he  was  in  his  shirt,  trousers,  and 
slippers  only.  Krafft,  however,  did  not  mean  to  be 
ignored. 

"I  came  to  show  you  this  book  to  prove  to  you 
that  you  could  now  release  Miss  Clarke,"  he  said.  "It 
would  be  needlessly  cruel  to  keep  her  here  any  longer, 
now  that  we  have  it.     Even  if  she  did  lie  to  you 


a74  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

about  its  hiding  place,  that  is  no  reason  for  further 
torturing  her — a  mere  girl.    I  will  not  permit  it." 

"You  will  not,  eh?  You!  Then,  may  I  ask,  will 
your  royal  highness  permit  me  to  leave  you  for  half 
an  hour  and  go  to  Heinzmann  that  I  may  return  and 
give  you  your  orders  to  keep  out  of  this  affair — 
permanently. 

"Why  should  she  be  kept  longer?" 

"Because  she  knows  where  Van  Corlear  hid  his 
book.  Do  you  think  he  was  fool  enough  to  kill  him- 
self without  telling  some  one?  He  might  as  well 
have  given  it  to  us  for  all  the  good  his  death  would 
have  done  unless  he  told  some  one  who  could  tell 
our  enemies  some  time.  Yet  you,  who  followed  him 
from  the  moment  he  got  the  book,  you  know  that  he 
gave  it  to  no  one  that  night.  Else  why  would  he  have 
gone  to  so  much  pains  to  lose  you.  He  stopped  in 
one  place  only,  the  chemist's  shop,  and  the  prescription 
in  his  pocket  showed  why.  Therefore  it  is  plain  he 
must  have  hidden  it  somewhere.  Plain,  ordinary  logic 
shows  that.  It  also  shows  that  if  he  did  not  go  to 
get  it,  it  would  be  completely  lost  to  the  people  who 
can  harm  us  when  they  get  it,  which  they  never  would 
unless  he  told  them  or  some  one  else.  He  is  dead. 
Who  else  remains  to  tell  them  ?  Plainly  the  girl.  Now 
perhaps  you  will  take  yourself  off  and  not  make  it 
necessary  for  me  to  go  to  Heinzmann  and  get  you 
orders  to  clear  out.    Will  you?" 

I  can  only  tell  you  what  they  said,  not  what  they  did, 
for  although  I  heard  them,  as  at  a  great  distance,  my 
eyes  were  too  heavy  to  stay  open  and  see  what  they 


A  LEAF  FROM  THE  KAISER'S  BOOK    275 

were  doing.  But  from  the  way  KnatchbuU  spoke  I 
could  see  him  in  my  mind's  eye  thrusting  his  face  close 
to  Krafft's  with  that  ugly  look  I  knew  so  well. 

Evidently  Krafft  was  a  different  sort  from  Knatch- 
buU, although  I  had  never  known  it  or,  in  fact,  given 
him  a  thought  until  the  previous  day,  when  it  was 
plain  he  disapproved  of  the  course  KnatchbuU  was 
taking  with  me.  But  the  way  he  had  given  in  then 
showed  that  Krafft  was  the  weaker,  and  I  had  not 
hoped  much  from  him. 

Therefore  his  firmness  now  surprised  me. 

'*No,"  said  Krafft.  "Go  to  Heinzmann,  if  you  like. 
Tell  him  I  have  the  girl's  book  and  that  neither  he 
nor  you  nor  any  one  else  shall  have  it  until  this  girl 
is  set  free.  As  far  as  Van  Corlear  is  concerned,  he 
died  from  heart  failure.  There  was  no  sign  of  violence 
on  him,  and  we  had  searched  him  thoroughly  and 
found  nothing  he  could  have  used  to  kill  himself  with. 
And  when  it  comes  to  preferring  charges  I  shall  say 
that  you  are  already  responsible  for  one  prisoner's 
death  and  that  if  Van  Corlear  had  been  given  just 
enough  stuff  to  keep  him  alive  that  would  have  been 
torture  enough  to  make  him  reveal  everything.  You 
bungled  that,  as  you  are  bungling  this,  and  I'm  not 
going  to  have  another  death  at  my  door,  if  I  can 
prevent  it.  Tell  Heinzmann  that,  too,  with  my  com- 
pliments." 

I  was  bound  to  look  up  at  these  bold  words,  but 
KnatchbuU's  face  was  such  a  mask  of  black  rage  that 
I  hid  my  own  again.  The  mere  sight  of  me  looking 
at  him  might  direct  his  wrath  toward  me  again-    As 


276  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

for  Krafft,  he  was  nervous  enough.  One  could  tell 
that  by  the  way  his  cigarette  glowed  brighter  and 
brighter  in  that  underground  gloom,  until  it  seemed 
to  be  more  of  a  red  coal  than  a  cigarette. 

But  he  did  not  give  way. 

"I  can  be  trusted  to  see  that  the  girl  does  not  escape," 
he  said  steadily  enough,  answering  an  angry  accusa- 
tion, the  while  keeping  one  hand  in  his  jacket  pocket. 
"But  she  shall  sleep  and  she  shall  eat.  And  I  shall 
remain." 

Again  I  looked  up  stealthily.  Knatchbull  had  on 
hat  and  greatcoat  by  now.  He  brandished  his  stick 
threateningly,  but  the  sight  of  Krafft's  hand  outlined 
tightly  against  the  cloth  of  his  jacket  pocket,  with 
the  forefinger  pointed  in  Knatchbull's  direction,  de- 
terred him  from  doing  anything  more  and  led  me  to 
believe  that  Krafft  kept  his  pistol  there. 

"I  will  be  back,"  said  Knatchbull  in  a  choked  voice, 
"with  others  who  will  come  to  take  you  to  Heinzmann 
and  to  the  punishment  you  are  bringing  on  yourself. 
You  will  regret  this  day's  work,  my  friend." 

He  flung  himself  out  of  the  room,  and,  as  Krafft 
did  not  rise,  but  sat  puffing  at  a  fresh  cigarette,  I  saw 
Knatchbull  go  through  the  next  room  and  open  the 
second  iron  door. 

Then  quite  suddenly,  as  if  he  had  been  stung,  he 
leaped  backward  and  let  his  stick  fall,  making  a  queer, 
strangled  sort  of  sound  as  he  did  so.  And  as  Krafft 
leaped  up,  too,  and  ran  into  the  other  room,  I  saw 
a  hand  holding  a  leveled  pistol  through  the  door ;  then 


A  LEAF  FROM  THE  KAISER'S  BOOK    277 

a  third  man,  a  stranger  to  me,  stepped  in,  kicking  the 
door  to  behind  him. 

"Put  'em  up;  both  of  you!**  he  said  in  a  curiously 
low,  unexcited  sort  of  voice,  and  the  weapon  shifted 
in  such  a  way  that  it  threatened  Krafft,  too.  "Drop 
that  gun  quick  !'* 

They  "put  'em  up**  without  a  word,  and  I  heard 
the  heavy  weapon  that  Krafft  had  drawn  fall  to  the 
earthen  floor  with  a  flat  sort  of  thud  just  as  Knatch- 
bull's  stick  had  done. 


CHAPTER  V 

In  Which  the  Freiherr  Eitel  von  Krafft  Goes 

TO  Meet  His  God,  as  a  Gentleman  of  Suabia 

Should:  the  Narrative  of  Clovis  Clarke 

Concluded 

THIS  was  my  first  sight  of  the  man  to  whom 
I  may  now  say  I  owe  everything;  my  life,  to 
begin  with,  my  present  career,  and  my  happi- 
ness. 

It  appears  that  he  had  learned  of  the  secret  entrance 
to  this  place,  and  had  been  crouching  outside  the  door, 
waiting  for  some  one  to  open  it,  believing  that,  if  he 
made  any  attempt  to  break  in,  the  first  thing  my 
captors  would  do  would  be  to  kill  me,  since  that  would 
be  the  only  way  they  could  keep  their  secrets  safe. 
Had  he  known  it,  he  could  not  have  broken  in,  any- 
way, without  burglars'  tools. 

I  learned  all  this  later,  of  course;  also  that  he  was 
hy  no  means  sure  that  I  was  imprisoned  here.  He 
acknowledges,  being  the  clever  man  he  is  and  devoid 
of  any  cheap  claims  to  infallibility,  that  luck  had  more 
to  do  with  it  than  he,  and  that  he  had  acted  on  impulse, 
inspired  by  the  sudden  anger  he  felt  at  finding  that 
this  house  was  the  residence  of  one  who  should  have 
been  the  most  loyal  sort  of  an  American. 

278 


A  LEAF  FROM  THE  KAISER'S  BOOK    279 

And  so,  seeing  me  through  the  open  door,  his  glad 
surprise  was  such  that  he  turned  his  eyes  in  my  direc- 
tion, forgetting  the  other  two  for  the  moment. 

"Are  you  the  Clarke  girl?"  he — well,  stammered  is 
the  only  word,  although  it  ill  accords  with  the  sort 
of  man  he  is.  I  can  only  explain  his  stammering  by 
remembering  the  enormous  importance  to  America  of 
the  secret  he  knew  I  alone  possessed. 

*'Oh,  look  out,  please!"  I  cried  agonizedly,  for  I 
had  seen  one  of  KnatchbuU's  hands  come  down  and 
dive  into  his  pocket. 

The  stranger — for,  as  I  have  said,  I  did  not  know 
he  was  Mr.  Norroy  then — whipped  around  and  brought 
his  weapon  to  bear  on  Knatchbull,  but  not  before 
the  latter 's  hand  had  come  out  of  his  pocket.  Ap- 
parently it  held  nothing  to  be  afraid  of.  But  I  knew 
better,  having  seen  him  clean  the  thing  on  the  previous 
night.  It  was  no  less  than  a  waistcoat-pocket-sized 
automatic  that  looked  like  a  gun-metal  cigarette  case 
with  a  little  spout  at  the  end.  The  little  spout  was 
in  reality  the  barrel.  After  cleaning,  I  had  seen 
Knatchbull  reload  it  with  thin,  sharp  steel  bullets,  any 
one  of  which  was  as  dangerous  as  a  shot  from  a  .44- 
caliber  revolver. 

Knatchbull  was  smiling.  "No  objection  to  a 
cigarette,  is  there?"  he  asked  with  great  politeness, 
opening  his  closed  hand.  He  had  drawn  the  weapon 
from  his  pocket  in  such  a  way  that  it  was  momentarily 
useless  to  him,  the  barrel  being  turned  inward.  Thus 
the  spout  was  concealed  by  the  fleshy  part  of  his  palm 
between  thumb  and  forefinger. 


28o  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

Evidently  Mr.  Norroy  knew  him  from  some  other 
meeting,  however,  for  he  said: 

"Oh,  it's  you,  is  it?  The  last  time  I  saw  you  you 
held  one  of  these  things  at  my  head,  and  you  un- 
doubtedly meant  to  use  it.  Will  you  give  me  some 
good  reason  why  I  shouldn't  use  it  on  you  ?" 

He  nodded  toward  the  pistol  he  held  pointed  toward 
Knatchbull. 

"Oh,  do  be  careful!"  I  warned  in  an  agonized  tone. 

"That's  not  a  cigarette  case  he's  holding.    It's  a " 

But  even  as  I  spoke,  Knatchbull  shifted  the  thing  in 
his  hand,  and  before  either  Mr.  Norroy  or  I  realized 
what  he  meant  to  do  he  turned  it  in  my  direction  and 
fired  rapidly  at  me,  dropping  to  hands  and  knees  as 
he  did  so  to  avoid  the  stranger's  fire. 

It  would  have  been  the  end  of  me  but  for  an 
unexpected  intervention.  Krafft  also  knew  what  the 
cigarette  case  was  for,  and  apparently  knew  Knatch- 
bull better  than  Mr.  Norroy  or  I,  realizing  that  for 
him  to  be  thwarted  was  a  far  bitter  dose  for  him  than 
merely  to  die.  If  he  killed  me  he  had  succeeded,  and 
the  secret  of  the  books  was  safe. 

As  I  say,  Krafft  must  have  read  all  this  in  Knatch- 
buU's  mind,  and  as  Knatchbull  was  paying  no  attention 
to  Krafft,  supposing  him  to  be  united  in  purpose  with 
him  now  they  had  a  common  enemy,  Krafft  was  the 
only  one  who  anticipated  KnatchbuU's  action.  So, 
when  the  latter  shifted  the  cigarette  case  and  dropped 
to  his  knee,  Krafft  sprang  at  him,  his  hands  striking 
KnatchbuU's  shoulders  and  deflecting  his  aim. 

The  bullets  flew  wild — four  of  them — ^and  before 


A  LEAF  FROM  THE  KAISER'S  BOOK    a8i 

he  could  aim  again — which  he  tried  to  do  even  in  his 
cramped  position — a  shot  from  the  stranger's  weapon 
shattered  his  elbow — so  we  afterward  discovered — and 
his  false  cigarette  case  fell  to  the  floor. 

I  rushed  into  the  other  room  and  held  out  my  hand 
to  Krafft. 

"You  saved  my  life,"  I  said.  "Of  course  there's 
no  way  to  thank  you,  but  I  hope  there  is  some  way 
of  showing  my  gratitude." 

He  looked  me  full  in  the  eyes  in  a  most  peculiar 
way.  "There  is,"  he  replied;  "by  looking  at  me  like 
that." 

What  he  meant  I  do  not  know,  although  I  have 
been  told,  when  the  various  parts  of  this  history  are 
assembled,  I  will  know. 

At  the  time,  however,  no  more  was  said.  I  turned 
to  see  the  stranger  struggling  with  Knatchbull,  who — 
such  was  the  brute  courage  of  the  man — was  fighting 
violently,  even  though  severely  wounded.  The 
stranger,  however,  lost  all  patience,  and,  extricating 
himself  from  the  other,  threw  him  by  some  trick 
heavily  to  the  floor.  Then  his  pistol  to  Knatchbull's 
head,  he  promised  to  blow  out  the  spy's  brains  if  he 
made  another  move. 

"Bind  him !"  he  directed  Krafft,  tossing  him  a  length 
of  cord  he  took  from  his  pocket. 

Krafft  did  so,  and  without  any  consideration  for 
his  wounded  arm,  either.  But  I  could  not  feel  any 
pity  for  such  a  brute  as  Knatchbull.  Even  had  I,  at 
first,  it  would  have  been  vitiated  by  his  own  behavior. 
For,  now  that  he  had  undoubtedly  lost  for  good  and 


282  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

all,  he  permitted  his  true  character  to  come  to  the 
surface  again,  and  both  Krafft  and  the  stranger  saw 
what  I  had  seen  during  those  horrible  nights  and  days 
— a.  creature  more  bestial  than  any  dumb  brute  could  be. 

"Now,  Miss  Clarke,"  said  Mr.  Norroy,  although 
I  had  not  guessed  at  his  identity  even  yet,  "go  through 
to  the  ladder  and  upstairs.  There  I  think  you  will 
find  some  of  my  men  looking  for  me.  Ask  for  Mr. 
Jarboe,  tell  him  who  you  are,  and  he  will  take  you 
where  you  want  to  go.  But  before  you  leave  him, 
lest  there  be  any  mistakes,  write  down  the  hiding  place 
of  the  book.  I  am  the  Mr.  Norroy  Mr.  Petersham  told 
you  about " 

My  eyes  lit  up;  then  they  filled  with  tears.  And 
I  forgot  what  I  had  meant  to  tell  him  immediately — 
that  I  knew  of  both  books.  For  so  wrapped  up  was 
I  in  hearing  about  the  boy  whom  I  thought  had  been 
killed  trying  to  save  me  I  could  think  of  nothing 
else, 

"Mr.  Petersham "  I  faltered. 

"Jarboe  will  explain,"  he  said  kindly.  "Now  go, 
please,  before  anything  further  happens.  Tell  Jarboe 
to  send  the  others  down  to  me.  If  they  have  not 
broken  in  the  house  as  yet,  open  the  door  and  blow 
this  whistle  three  times." 

He  detached  a  tiny  gold  whistle  from  his  watch 
chain.  But  before  he  could  say  more  we  heard  a 
scuffling  noise  near  by,  and  then  tliat  of  somebody 
taking  an  unexpected  drop  that  jolted  certain  words 
through  his  chattering  teeth.  In  another  minute  the 
doorway  was  crowded  with  men  with  leveled  revolvers. 


A  LEAF  FROM  THE  KAISER'S  BOOK    283 

"It's  all  right,  boys,"  I  heard  Mr.  Norroy  say ;  then 
he  called  two  by  name.  "Take  this  man  off  with  you." 
He  pointed  to  KnatchbuU.  'Tut  him  in  the  cell  Spiegel 
had,  and  remain  outside  in  the  corridor  tmtil  I  come. 
Search  him  thoroughly,  and  keep  him  in  sight  all  the 
time.  He  is  the  most  dangerous  of  the  league  leaders, 
or  I  miss  my  guess.  Let  a  doctor  look  after  his  arm, 
but  watch  him  close  while  the  doctor  does  it,  and  see 
he  doesn't  get  his  hands  on  one  of  the  scalpels.  He 
is  downright  dangerous.     Off  with  him!" 

They  hustled  Knatchbull  off,  and  never  was  I  so 
glad  to  see  any  one  go. 

"Now,  Jarboe,"  he  said,  "take  this  young  lady 
to "  He  whispered  something,  then  added:  "Tele- 
phone Miss  Hardesty  or  Mrs.  Luyties  to  come  and 
outfit  her  with  clothes.     What  is  this.  Miss  Clarke?" 

For  I  had  scribbled  down  not  only  the  place  where 
I  had  hidden  my  book,  but  also  where  the  book  found 
by  Mr.  Van  Corlear  was  to  be  had. 

In  answer  I  told  him  as  simply  as  I  could  all  about 
Ethan  Van  Corlear,  although  my  voice,  choked  enough 
as  it  was  by  revived  thoughts  of  young  Petersham, 
broke  down  altogether  when  it  came  to  my  companion's 
sad  fate. 

After  I  had  finished,  there  was  silence.  Then  Mr. 
Norroy  took  off  his  hat  and  Mr.  Jarboe  and  the  others 
did  the  same.  Nothing  was  said,  but  if  Ethan  Van 
Corlear  could  have  seen  their  faces  he  would  have 
known  he  had  not  died  in  vain. 

Then  I  had  an  inspiration. 

"Won't  you  let  him  go,  Mr.  Norroy?"  I  begged, 


284  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

referring  to  Krafft,  of  course,  "You  can  get  all  the 
information  you  need  from  Knatchbull.  Treat  him 
as  he  treated  Mr.  Van  Corlear ;  keep  his  cocaine  from 
him.  With  a  wounded  arm,  he'll  need  it  all  the  more. 
I  have  never  been  revengeful,  but  this  Knatchbull  is 
a  beast;  he  is  responsible  for  the  death  of  Mr.  Peter- 
sham and  maybe  of  my  stepfather,  too " 

I  looked  my  inquiry  as  I  spoke,  and  the  man  called 
Jarboe  nodded  and  seemed  about  to  say  something, 
but  Mr.  Norroy  held  up  his  hand.  I  composed  myself 
as  best  I  could  under  the  new  blow,  for,  after  all,  I 
had  cared  more  for  my  stepfather  than  he  had  cared 
for  me.    Then  I  went  on  passionately : 

"And  Van  Corlear !  And  no  one  knows  how  many 
more.  He  meant  to  leave  me  here  to  die  if  this  man 
Krafft  hadn't  come,  as  he  said.  It  is  true.  Maybe  he 
wouldn't  be  your  prisoner  now,  nor  would  I  be  saved 
if  he  hadn't  stopped  on  an  errand  of  mercy '* 

Yorke  Norroy  stopped  me.  "Bok,"  said  he  to  the 
second  man  who  had  remained,  "the  Vandam  sails  for 
Rotterdam  at  noon  to-day.  Escort  this  gentleman  to 
his  lodgings,  let  him  get  his  clothes,  then  see  him 
aboard.    Remain  with  him  until  she  sails." 

But,  to  our  surprise,  Krafft  shook  his  head. 

*T  am  done  for  as  a  German  subject,"  he  said. 
"What  I  did  to-day  in  this  room  means  life  imprison- 
ment if  I  return  to  the  fatherland.  Nothing  can  keep 
Knatchbull  from  reporting  me  except  his  instant  death, 
and  I  know  your  laws  too  well  for  that.  Before  the 
week  Is  out  he  will  get  through  a  cipher  message  about 
me.    If  you  do  not  believe  me,  you  will  when  you  have 


A  LEAF  FROM  THE  KAISER'S  BOOK    285 

all  four  books  containing  the  names.  You  will  find 
that  our  secret  service  penetrates  to  every  part  of  your 
government.  In  your  prison  system  and  police  system 
there  are  many  many  people  who  will  help  KnatchbuU 
to  send  out  whatever  he  wishes.  You  have  no  ade- 
quate method  of  dealing  with  such  men.  Instant  death 
before  a  firing  squad  is  the  penalty  a  spy  pays  in  all 
countries  except  England  and  America.  If  they  paid 
tliat  penalty  here,  there  would  not  be  so  many  names 
in  those  four  books,  my  friends." 

He  paused,  breathing  hard. 

"Why  do  you  tell  us  all  this?"  asked  Mr.  Norroy 
curiously. 

"Because  I  am  sick  of  the  system  that  permits  men 
to  torture  helpless  creatures  as  KnatchbuU  tortured 
this  girl.  'Anything  for  victory'  is  a  poor  motto  if 
one  must  lose  all  honor,  all  self-respect,  must  become 
a  beast,  such  beasts  as  those  who  ravaged  Belgium. 
Our  government  denied  those  dastardly  deeds,  and  I 
for  one  chose  to  believe  that  they  were  only  English 
lies.  But  it  is  different  to  hear  of  things  than  to  see 
them,  and  when,  a  day  or  so  ago,  I  saw  this  girl's 
horror-stricken  eyes  fixed  on  Knatchbull's  as  a  bird's 
are  fixed  on  the  snake  about  to  devour  it,  I  knew  then 
that  my  country  was  not  Prussia  but  Saxony;  and 
that  the  empire  of  Germany  to  which  we  Saxons  first 
swore  allegiance  is  only  Prussia." 

He  paused  again,  turning  his  face  away.  Then  sud- 
denly he  snatched  the  weapon  that  hung  loosely  be- 
tween Yorke  Norroy's  fingers,  and  before  any  one 
could  interfere  he  had  clapped  it  to  his  head  and  fired. 


286  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

As  it  dropped  from  his  hand,  he  stood,  swaying  and 
smiling  for  a  moment,  then  oitched  forward  on  his 
face,  dead. 

This,  added  to  the  excitement  of  three  days,  was 
too  much  for  me.  I  must  have  fainted  before  he 
touched  the  floor. 


CHAPTER  VI 
The  Editor  Concludes  the  Tale 

IT  was  a  balmy  day  in  May.  In  the  deep  em- 
brasure of  an  upper  window  of  Cove  Cottage, 
Clovis  Clarke  sat,  a  window  lately  made  com- 
fortable and  attractive  by  softly  padded  window  seats 
upholstered  in  gayly  colored  chintz,  above  which  were 
hangings  and  upon  which  were  piles  of  eiderdown  pil- 
lows, all  of  the  same  material.  From  the  point  of  van- 
tage, the  girl  could  see  the  early-morning  sun  shining 
upon  the  waters  of  Setauket  Harbor  and  Port  Jefferson 
Bay.  Beyond  lay  the  Sound,  all  shimmering  waves  of 
brightness,  and  so  clear  was  it  that  one  could  see  faintly 
outlined  in  the  distance  the  Connecticut  shore. 

Below  in  the  brook,  several  male  storks  stood 
meditatively  regarding  the  marshes,  fat  with  frogs 
and  other  succulent  essentials  of  a  stork  break- 
fast. Above,  on  the  roof,  domiciled  in  the  shelter  of 
the  various  clusters  of  chimney  pots,  and  pecking  dis- 
consolately at  the  bits  of  green  that  grew  between  the 
interstices  of  the  slate  roof,  sat  three  mother  storks, 
quieting  their  hungry  brood.  Farther  out  in  the 
channel,  like  bits  of  jeweled  enamel  or  precious  porce- 
lain, shone  the  plumage  of  the  herons,  while  overhead 

287 


288  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

darted  the  egrets,  pouncing  down  on  what  they  had 
not  the  patience  to  wait  for  like  the  more  stoical  mem- 
bers of  their  long-legged  tribe. 

The  Sound  seemed  the  same  as  before,  but  where 
once  there  had  been  a  few  ships  now  there  were  many, 
their  white  sails  like  the  wings  of  far-distant  birds. 
There  was  a  difference  in  the  harbor,  too.  The  Setau- 
ket  shipyards  had  not  been  such  humming  hives  since 
Civil  War  days.  The  skeletons  of  new  ships  showed 
everywhere,  and  on  the  shore  roads  leading  toward 
the  outlying  yards  which,  six  months  before,  had  been 
green  with  disuse,  drove  countless  Fords  and  motor 
cycles  filled  with  skilled  shipbuilders  drawn  from  all 
parts  of  the  Eastern  coast. 

However,  even  the  sight  of  so  much  beauty  cannot 
hold  one  with  urgent  personal  matters  on  one's  mind, 
and  the  girl  would  continually  turn  her  eyes  from  the 
window  to  the  door  of  the  near-by  room,  her  im- 
patience growing  with  each  look,  if  one  might  judge 
from  the  increased  velocity  of  her  small  foot,  which 
from  an  occasional  tapping  had  increased  to  a  military 
ratatat. 

'Finally  she  spoke. 

"Haven't  you  got  it  on  yet?"  she  asked,  trying  to 
keep  the  impatience  out  of  her  voice. 

"It's  my  arm,"  came  the  answer  through  the  door. 
*Tt  isn't  as  easy  to  move  as  you'd  think,  and  hooking 
the  collar's  harder  than  I  thought " 

**Why  don't  you  let  me  do  it?"  she  asked  petulantly. 

"Because  I  want  to  burst  on  you  in  all  my  glory," 
replied  the  male  voice.    "There — I've  got  it !" 


A  LEAF  FRO^  THE  KA^ISER'S  BOOK    289 

And  almost  immediately  after  there  stepped  from 
the  door  of  the  boudoir  which  once  had  been  all  her 
own,  but  which  had  been  converted  into  a  bedroom 
for  her  husband,  that  young  gentleman  best  known 
to  us  as  Charles  Petersham,  esquire.  But  he  was  no 
longer  that;  as  the  brand-new  uniform  which  had 
arrived  only  last  night  showed,  his  form  of  address 
was  now  Ensign  Charles  Petersham,  U.  S.  N,,  and 
as  his  papers  received  from  the  navy  department  the 
week  before  would  have  told  you,  his  duties  were 
those  of  assistant  naval  constructor,  detailed  for 
special  duty  at  the  Port  Jefferson  and  Setauket  Ship- 
building Yards  to  assist  his  senior.  Lieutenant  Com- 
mander Buckles,  in  overseeing  the  building  of  as  many 
as  possible  of  "the  ships  that  would  win  the  war." 

For,  as  he  lay  recovering  from  his  wounds,  the 
deeper  sentiment  of  the  country  had  prevailed;  the 
descendants  of  those  who  had  won  America  from  the 
wilderness  and  had  built  her  up  to  greatness  had  pre- 
vailed over  the  opinions  of  those  who  had  become 
citizens  only  after  all  difficulties  and  dangers  had  been 
overcome.  And  so,  at  last,  we  had  taken  rightful 
place  by  our  brothers'  sides  in  the  fight  to  keep  the 
world  free. 

Which  had  made  it  easier  for  Yorke  Norroy  to  set 
about  interning  those  whose  names  he  found  in  the 
four  books,  and  by  thus  segregating  them  keeping  the 
canker  of  "kultur"  from  spreading  among  others  of 
their  race.  But,  despite  his  official  duties,  he  had 
spared  the  time  to  bring  up  the  case  of  Charles  Peter- 
sham through  the  bureau  of  naval  intelligence  to  the 


390  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

attention  of  the  secretary  of  the  navy.  The  latter 
had  asked  Norroy  for  a  private  consultation  on  this 
subject,  during  which  Norroy  dilated  upon  the  services 
Petersham  had  rendered  his  country,  even  when  that 
country  had  denied  him,  and  showed  conclusively  that, 
had  the  boy  not  been  guilty  of  that  original  error  in 
judgment  for  which  he  had  been  disgraced,  the  ex- 
istence of  The  Black  Book  might  have  remained  un- 
known to  him,  Norroy,  and  that  instead  of  the 
pernicious  activities  of  the  league  being  checked  at  the 
f  ountainhead,  it  might  have  taken  years  of  surveillance 
to  put  an  end  to  them. 

For,  as  Clovis  Qarke  had  predicted,  Norroy  had 
only  to  take  a  leaf  from  the  kaiser's  book  where 
KnatchbuU  was  concerned  to  learn  all  that  remained 
to  be  known  about  the  league.  KnatchbuU  had  per- 
sisted in  his  defiance  for  but  little  more  than  a  day; 
then,  like  Ethan  Van  Corlear,  in  that  he  was  reduced 
to  a  bunch  of  quivering  nerves,  but  unlike  him  in  that 
the  torture  in  his  case  was  not  unendurable,  KnatchbuU 
found  himself  facing  either  suicide  or  compliance.  But 
the  bravado  went  out  of  him  with  the  brutality,  and 
it  is  doubtful  whether  he  would  have  availed  himself 
of  the  chance  for  self-destruction  even  had  it  been 
given  him.  Which  it  was  not,  one  or  another  of 
Norroy's  men  remaining  outside  his  cell  during  every 
second  of  his  captivity. 

Reduced  to  pitiful  pleading,  KnatchbuU  had  told 
all  that  Norroy  wanted  to  know,  which  had  resulted 
in  the  discovery  of  the  remaining  hiding  places  and 


A  LEAP  FROM  THE  KAISER'S  BOOK  29^ 

the  arrest  of  the  wounded  Heinzmann  and  other  league 
leaders.  These  after  a  secret  trial — for  it  was  judged 
unwise  to  let  the  public  know  how  widespread  was 
the  treason  which  they  had  inspired  and  directed — 
were  sentenced  to  life  imprisonment  on  proven  charges 
of  arson  and  incendiarism  generally. 

Knatchbull,  however,  was  adjudged  too  dangerous 
a  man  to  be  left  alive.  He  was  executed,  under  sen- 
tence of  a  court-martial,  for  the  murders  of  Asgard 
Asbjornson,  stepfather  to  Qovis  Clarke,  and  of  the 
man  whose  name  he  bore ;  for  proof  had  been  submitted 
that  this  particular  Knatchbull  was  in  reality  a  certain 
Lodevic  zu  Urbanhloe,  a  captain  in  the  Death's-head 
Hussars.  He  had  taken  the  name  of  Knatchbull  from 
an  unfortunate  Cornishman  whom  he  slightly  re- 
sembled; to  which  resemblance  the  other  lost  his  life, 
since  at  the  time  he  had  met  the  real  Knatchbull  the 
Prussian  officer  had  applied  for  a  secret  service  detail 
and  saw  in  the  use  of  the  other  man's  identity  sufficient 
reason  for  making  away  with  him,  a  reason  his  col- 
leagues of  the  Wilhelmstrasse  must  have  shared  since 
the  murder  was  committed  in  Berlin  and  hushed  up 
by  official  order. 

When  Norroy  had  left  the  State,  War  and  Navy 
Building  after  his  interview  with  the  secretary  of  the 
navy,  he  had  taken  with  him  his  promise  that  Peter- 
sham should  be  given  a  special  examination  for  naval 
constructor,  for  now  the  demand  for  such  officers  was 
far  greater  than  the  supply.    And  it  was  on  the  day 


293  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

that  he  was  notified  that  he  had  passed  the  examination 
that  his  wedding  to  Clovis  Clarke  had  taken  place. 

She  stood  now,  admiring  him  in  his  uniform.  Sud- 
denly she  threw  both  arms  about  him  and  hid  her 
face  against  his  navy  blue. 

"I  owe  it  all  to  you,  dearest,"  the  boy  said,  stroking 
her  hair.  "Ask  the  doctors  how  they  despaired  of 
me  until  that  day  when  you  came  into  my  room  at 
the  hospital  and  sat  there  holding  my  hand  until  I 
rallied  sufficiently  to  recognize  you.  From  the  moment 
you  leaned  over  and  kissed  me  I  knew  I  just  had  to 
get  well " 

She  blushed  rosy  red.  "I  didn't  know  you  recog- 
nized me,  or  I  wouldn't  have  dared,"  she  murmured. 

"I  owe  it  all  to  you,  just  the  same,"  insisted  Ensign 
Charles  Petersham,  U.  S.  N.,  as  he  leaned  over  for 
his  usual  ante-breakfast  kiss. 

As  for  Yorke  Norroy,  neither  of  them  remembered 
him  at  all,  which  is  the  way  of  youth.  But  Yorke 
Norroy  had  forgotten  them  as  much  as  they  had  for- 
gotten him,  and  had  you  seen  him  emerge  from  his 
apartment  that  morning,  a  symphony  in  green,  you 
would  have  thought,  from  his  studiously  vacuous  face, 
that  he  had  forgotten  everything  he  ever  knew  worth 
remembering. 

It  would  have  been  hard  to  believe  that  in  this  man 
was  summed  up  the  country's  greatest  strength  in 
combating  alien  espionage.  Though  many  years  had 
passed  since  first  he  had  won  that  reputation,  his  figure 
was  as  youthful  as  of  yore,  his  clothes  in  keeping  with 


A  LEAF  FROM  THE  KAISER'S  BOOK    293 

it.  He  wore  a  lounge  suit  of  dull  olivine-green  serge, 
in  color  not  unlike  an  officer's  uniform,  his  shirt  of 
soft  pleats  was  of  green  and  lavender,  his  socks  were 
green,  clocked  with  lavender  also,  his  tie  was  of  the 
same  shade  of  opalescent  greenish  silk  as  his  waistcoat. 
His  face,  wreathed  in  smiles,  seemed  empty,  pointless. 

But  tliose  who  knew  him  well  knew  another  face 
of  his  far  better — ^the  face  that  had  a  thousand  tiny- 
wrinkles  about  mouth  and  forehead  when  the  man 
himself  seemed  as  old  and  as  wise  as  the  Sphinx  itself. 
And,  if  in  his  idle  moments,  it  had  become  second 
nature  for  him  to  convince  the  world  that  nothing 
was  of  more  importance  to  him  than  the  exact  match- 
ing of  the  colors  of  shirts  and  socks,  they  knew  it  must 
serve  some  purpose  the  wisdom  of  which  was  not  to 
be  doubted. 

As  indeed  it  was  not;  for  though  Yorke  Norroy 
was  to  be  reproached  many  times  by  indignant  Red 
Cross  workers  and  by  patriotic  advocates  of  the  enlist- 
ment of  all  idle  men  with  the  ability  to  shoulder  a  gun, 
the  fact  that  it  only  caused  him  to  put  up  a  hand  to 
conceal  a  yawn  made  it  clear  to  every  one  that  he 
could  not  possibly  be  worth  bothering  about.  Hence 
he  would  many  times  see  and  hear  things  that  louder- 
voiced  and  more  violent-mannered  patriots  would  not 
have  been  allowed  to  see  or  hear,  and  thereby  many 
people  would  have  avoided  certain  attentions  which  his 
hearing  and  seeing  brought  upon  them — attentions 
very  much  resented. 

That  is,  until  a  certain  day  in  the  autumn  of  'seven- 


294  THE  BLACK  BOOK 

teen  when  he  disappeared  from  his  usual  haunts,  being 
needed  more  urgently  elsewhere.  But  where  that  was 
I  cannot  tell  you. 

Not  now,  at  any  rate.     For  now  I  have  told  all  I 
am  allowed  to  tell  of  Secret  History. 


THI  END 


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Man  in  Grey,  The.     By  Baroness  Orczy. 

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Man  Who  Couldn't  Sleep,  The.    By  Arthur  Stringer. 


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Man  with  the  Club  Foot,  The.    By  Valentine  Williams. 

Mary-'Gxista.     By  Joseph  C.  Lincoln. 

Mary  Moreland.     By  Marie  Van  Vorst. 

Mary  Regan.     By  Leroy  Scott. 

Master  Mummer,  The.    By  E.  Phillips  Oppenheim. 

Memoirs  of  Sherlock  Holmes.     Bv  A.  Conan  Doyle. 

Men  Who  Wrought,  The.     By  Ridgwell  CuUum. 

Mischief  Maker,  The.     By  E.  Phillips  Oppenheim. 

Missioner,  The.    By  E.  Phillips  Oppenheim. 

Miss  Million's  Maid.     By  Berta  Ruck. 

Molly  McDonald.     By  Randall  Parrish. 

Money  Master,  The.     By  Gilbert  Parker. 

Money  Moon,  The.    By  Jeffery  Farnol. 

Moimtain  Girl,  The.    By  Payne  Erskine. 

Moving  Finger,  The.     By  Natalie  Sumner  Lincoln. 

Mr.  Bingle.    By  George  Barr  McCutcheon. 

Mr.  Grex  of  Monte  Carlo.    By  E.  Phillips  Oppenheim. 

Mr.  Pratt.     By  Joseph  C.  Lincoln. 

Mr.  Pratt's  Patients.     By  Joseph  C.  Lincoln. 

Mrs.  Belfame.     By  Gertrude  Atherton. 

Mrs.  Red  Pepper.     By  Grace  S.  Richmond 

My  Lady  Caprice.     By  Jeffrey  Farnol. 

My  Lady  of  the  North.     By  Randall  Parrish. 

My  Lady  of  the  South.     By  Randall  Parrish. 

Mystery  of  the  Hasty  Arrow,  The.    By  Anna  K.  Green. 

Nameless  Man,  The.     By  Nataile  Sumner  Lincoln. 

Ne'er-Do- Well,  The.     By  Rex  Beach. 

Nest  Builders,  The.     By  Beatrice  Forbes-Robertson  Hale. 

Net,  The.     By  Rex  Beach. 

New  Clarion.    By  Will  N.  Harben. 

Night  Operator,  The.     By  Frank  L.  Packard. 

Night  Riders,  The.     By  Ridgwell  Cullum. 

Nobody.    By  Louis  Joseph  Vance. 

Okewood  of  the  Secret  Service.     By  the  Author  of  "The 

Man  with  the  Club  Foot." 
One  Way  Trail,  The.    By  Ridprwell  Cnlhim. 
Or>en,  Sesame.     By  Mrs.  Baillie  Reynolds. 
Otherwise  Phyllis.    Bv  Meredith  Nicholson. 
Outlaw.  The.     By  Jackson  Gregory. 


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Paradise  Auction.    By  Nalbro  Hartley. 

Pardners.     By  Rex  Beach. 

Parrot  &  Co.     By  Harold  MacGrath. 

Partners  of  the  Night.     By  Leroy  Scott 

Partners  of  the  Tide,     By  Joseph  C.  Lincoln. 

Passionate  Friends,  The.     By  H.  G.  Wells. 

Patrol  of  the  Sun  Dance  Trail,  The.     By  Ralph  Connor. 

Paul  Anthony,  Christian.     By  Hiram  W.  Hays. 

Pawns  Count,  The.     By  E.  Phillips  Oppenheim. 

People's  Man,  A.     By  E.  Phillips  Oppenheim. 

Perch  of  the  DeviL     By  Gertrude  Atherton. 

Peter  Ruff  and  the  Double  Four.    By  E.  Phillips  Oppenheim. 

Pidgin  Island.     By  Harold  MacGrath. 

Place  of  Honeymoon,  The.     By  Harold  MacGrath. 

Pool  of  Flame,  The.     By  Louis  Joseph  Vance. 

Postmaster,  The.     By  Joseph  C.  Lincoln. 

Prairie  Wife,  The.     By  Arthur  Stringer. 

Price  of  the  Prairie,  The.     By  Margaret  Hill  McCarter. 

Prince  of  Sinners,  A.     By  E.  Phillips  Oppenheim. 

Promise,  The.     By  J.  B.  Hendryx. 

Proof  of  the  Pudding,  The.    By  Meredith  Nicholson. 


Rainbow's  End,  The.     By  Rex  Beach. 

Ranch  at  the  Wolverine,  The.     By  B.  M.  Bower. 

Ranching  for  Sylvia.     By  Harold  Bindloss. 

Ransom.     By  Arthur  Somers  Roche. 

Reason  Why,  The.     By  Elinor  Glyn. 

Reclaimers,  The.     By  Margaret  Hill  McCarter. 

Red  Mist,  The.     By  Randall  Parrish. 

Red  Pepper  Bums.     By  Grace  S.  Richmond. 

Red  Pepper's  Patients.     By  Grace  S.  Richmond. 

Rejuvenation  of  Aunt  Mary,  The.     By  Anne  Warner. 

Restless  Sex,  The.     By  Robert  W.  Chambers. 

Return  of  Dr.  Fu-Manchu,  The.     By  Sax  Rohmer. 

Return  of  Tarzan,  The.     By  Edgar  Rice  Burroughs. 

Riddle  of  Night,  The.     By  Thomas  W.  Hanshew. 

Rim  of  the  Desert,  The.     By  Ada  Woodruff  Anderson. 

Rise  of  Roscoe  Paine,  The.     By  J.  C.  Lincoln. 

Rising  Tide,  The.    By  Margaret  Deland. 


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Rocks  of  Valpre,  The.     By  Ethel  M.  Dell. 

Rogue  by  Compulsion,  A.     By  Victor  Bridges. 

Room  Number  3.     By  Anna  Katharine  Green. 

Rose  in  the  Ring,  The.     By  George  Barr  McCutcheon. 

Rose  of  Old  Harpeth,  The.     By   Maria  Thompson  Daviess. 

Round  the  Corner  in  Gay  Street.     By  Grace  S.  Richmond. 

Second  Choice.    By  Will  N.  Harben. 

Second  Violin,  The.    By  Grace  S.  Richmond. 

Secret  History.     By  C.  N.  &  A.  M.  Williamson. 

Secret  of  the  Reef,  The.     By  Harold  Bindloss. 

Seven  Darlings,  The.     By  Gouverneur  Morris. 

Shavings.     By  Joseph  C.  Lincoln. 

Shepherd  of  the  Hills,  The.     By  Harold  Bell  Wright. 

Sheriff  of  Dyke  Hole,  The.     By  Ridgwell  Cullum. 

Sherry.     By  George  Barr  McCutcheon. 

Side  of  the  Angels,  The.     By  Basil  King. 

Silver  Horde,  The.     By  Rex  Beach. 

Sin  Th»t  Was  His,  The.     By  Frank  L.  Packard. 

Sixty-first  Second,  The.     By  Owen  Johnson. 

Soldier  of  the  Legion,  A.     By  C.  N.  &.  A.  M.  Williamson. 

Son  of  His  Father,  The.     By  Ridgwell  Cullum. 

Son  of  Tarzan,  The.     By  Edgar  Rice  Burroughs. 

Source,  The.     By  Clarence  Buddington  Kelland. 

Speckled  Bird,  A.     By  Augusta  Evans  Wilson. 

Spirit  in  Prison,  A.     By  Robert  Hichens. 

Spirit  of  the  Border,  The.     (New  Edition.)     By  Zane  Grey. 

Spoilers,  The.     By  Rex  Beach. 

Steele  of  the  Royal  Mounted.     By  James  Oliver  Curwood. 

Still  Jim.     By  Honore  Willsie. 

Story  of  Foss  River  Ranch,  The.     By  Ridgwell  Cullum. 

Story  of  Marco,  The,     By  Eleanor  H.  Porter. 

Strange  Case  of  Cavendish,  The.     By  Randall  Parrish. 

Strawberry  Acres.     By  Grace  S.  Richmond. 

Sudden  Jim.     By  Clarence  B.  Kelland. 

Tales  of  Sherlock  Holmes.  By  A.  Conan  Doyle. 
Tarzan  of  the  Apes.  By  Edgar  R.  Burroughs. 
Tarzan  and  the  Jewels  of  Opar.     By  Edgar  Rice  Burroughs. 


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Tempting  of  Tavernake,  The.    By  E.  Phillips  Oppenheim. 

Tess  of  the  D'Urbervilles.    By  Thos.  Hardy. 

Thankful's  Inheritance.     By  Joseph  C.  Lincoln. 

That  Affair  Next  Door.    By  Anna  Katharine  Green. 

That  Printer  of  Udell's.     By  Harold  Bell  Wright 

Their  Yesterdays.     By  Harold  Bell  Wright. 

Thirteenth  Commandment,  The.     By  Rupert  Hughes. 

Three  of  Hearts,  The.     By  Berta  Ruck. 

Three  Strings,  The.     By  Natalie  Sumner  Lincoln. 

Threshold,  The.     By  Marjorie  Benton  Cooke. 

Throwback,  The.     By  Alfred  Henry  Lewis. 

Tish.     By  Mary  Roberts  Rinehart. 

To  M.  L.  G.;  or.  He  Who  Passed.    Anon. 

Trail  of  the  Axe,  The.     By  Ridgwell  Cullum. 

Trail  to  Yesterday,  The.     By  Chas.  A.  Seltzer. 

Treasure  of  Heaven,  The.     By  Marie  Corelli. 

Triumph,  The.     By  Will  N.  Harben. 

T.  Tembarom.     By  Frances  Hodgson  Burnett. 

Turn  of  the  Tide.     By  Author  of  "Pollyanna." 

Twenty-fourth  of  June,  The.     By  Grace  S.  Richmond. 

Twins  of  Suffering  Creek,  The.     By  Ridgwell  Cullum. 

Two-Gun  Man,  The.    By  Chas.  A.  Seltzer. 


Uncle  William.    By  Jeannette  Lee. 

Under  Handicap.     By  Jackson  Gregory. 

Under  the  Country  Sky.     By  Grace  S.  Richmond. 

Unforgiving  Offender,  The.     By  John  Reed  Scott. 

Unknown  Mr.  Kent,  The.     By  Roy  Norton. 

Unpardonable  Sin,  The.     By  Major  Rupert  Hughes. 

Up  From  Slavery.    By  Booker  T.  Washington. 

Valiants  of  Virginia,  The.    By  Hallie  Ermine  Rives. 
Valley  of  Fear,  The.    By  Sir  A.  Conan  Doyle. 
Vanished  Messenger,  The.     By  E.  Phillips  Oppenheim. 
Vanguards  of  the  Plains.    By  Margaret  Hill  McCarter. 
Vashti.    By  Augusta  Evans  Wilson. 
Virtuous  Wives.     By  Owen  Johnson. 
Visioning,  The.    By  Susan  GlaspelL 


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Waif-o'-the-Sea.    By  Cyrus  Townsend  Brady. 

Wall  of  Men,  A.     By  Margaret  H.  McCarter. 

Watchers  of  the  Plans,  The.    By  Ridgwell  Cullum. 

Way  Home,  The.    By  Basil  King. 

Way  of  an  Eagle,  The.    By  E.  M.  Dell. 

Way  of  the  Strong,  The.     By  Ridgwell  Cullum. 

Way  of  These  Women,  The.     By  E.  Phillips  Oppenheim. 

We  Can't  Have  Everything.    By  Major  Rupert  Hughes. 

Weavers,  The.     By  Gilbert  Parker. 

When  a  Man's  a  Man.    By  Harold  Bell  Wright. 

When  Wilderness  Was  King.     By  Randall  Parrish. 

Where  the  Trail  Divides.     By  Will  Lillibridge. 

Where  There's  a  Will.    By  Mary  R.  Rinehart. 

White  Sister,  The.     By  Marion  Crawford. 

Who  Goes  There?    By  Robert  W.  Chambers. 

Why  Not.     By  Margaret  Widdemer. 

Window  at  the  White  Cat,  The.    By  Mary  Roberts  Rinehart. 

Winds  of  Chance,  The.    By  Rex  Beach. 

Wings  of  Youth,  The.    By  Elizabeth  Jordan. 

Winning  of  Barbara  Worth,  The.    By  Harold  Bell  Wright. 

Wire  Devils,  The.     By  Frank  L.  Packard. 

Winning  the  Wilderness.     By  Margaret  Hill  McCarter. 

Wishing  Ring  Man,  The.    By  Margaret  Widdemer. 

With  Juliet  in  England.    By  Grace  S.  Richmond. 

Wolves  of  the  Sea.     By  Randall  Parrish. 

Woman  Gives,  The.    By  Owen  Johnson. 

Woman  Haters,  The.    By  Joseph  C.  Lincoln. 

Woman  in  Question,  The.    By  John  Reed  Scott. 

Woman  Thou  Gavest  Me,  The.     By  Hall  Caine. 

Woodcarver  of  *Lympus,  The.    By  Mary  E.  Waller. 

Wooing  of  Rosamond  Fayre,  The.    By  Berta  Ruck. 

World  for  Sale,  The.    By  Gilbert-Parker. 

Years  for  Rachel,  The.    By  Berta  Ruck. 

Yellow  Claw,  The.    By  Sax  Rohmer. 

You  Never  Know  Your  Luck.    By  Gilbert  Parker. 

Zeppelin's  Passenger,  The.    By  E.  Phillips  Oppenheim. 


